


What Doesn't Kill You

by Zbluez



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-05-28 19:45:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 57,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6342574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zbluez/pseuds/Zbluez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>... Oh wait, it did.<br/>OC/SI. Cross-posted in fanfiction.net.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Unnatural

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [ Unnatural: 1. Contrary to the laws or course of nature. 2. Lacking human qualities or sympathies; monstrous, inhuman.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A.N: There will be action. There will be badassery. There will be doubt and cruelty, but also change and progress and hope.
> 
> Inspired by the great SIs out there. Vapors, Dreaming of Sunshine, Deja Vu no Jutsu, etc.
> 
> Cross-posted in fanfiction.net 

Aoi Momoru was unnatural, verging on disturbing.

When asked about her, her parents wouldn't say much. Oh, she was a quiet baby. And, well, she ate. She slept a lot, even for a baby. The father's eyes would stray away after a while and he'd switch the topic of conversation to something else, probably work-related. It was obvious that he didn't really care about his daughter, though no one commented on it. How he chose to raise his children was his business.

The mother, Nana Momoru, wouldn't add anything interesting. The way her eyes shifted was stranger than the father's; almost like one would look away from an uncomfortable topic, rather than a boring one. Why she would be reluctant to discuss her own daughter was anyone's guess, and if asked directly she would smile and agree that Aoi was perfectly adorable, and did you hear that the Onasu had a new dog? The more curious relatives had found that indeed, the baby was normal. She gurgled and reached and crossed her eyes in that funny way babies had, and was generally adorable and cute.

But when no one was around, the gurgles ceased abruptly and Aoi turned serious, yellow eyes sharp and intense, almost burning as they darted around her surroundings. The expression was frightening on the babyish features. No baby was supposed to look at the world with such awareness.

Nana, like everyone else, didn't notice at first. Until a month after the birth, when she walked into the room where she'd left her for a moment and caught a glimpse of that look. Aoi quickly dissolved into a smile and made reaching motions with her hands, and Nana thought that perhaps she'd imagined it.

But no – because as she watched her daughter more closely, she realized that the high-pitched gurgles tended to decrease in enthusiasm when their relatives fussed over her for extended periods of time and were replaced by flashes of that other expression. It was as if the attention bored or annoyed Aoi. And worst of all, it was as if she was trying to hide it, as if the baby was consciously acting, which was simply impossible. It scared Nana, and from that moment on she preferred not to sneak up on her daughter so she wouldn't see her like that. If she ignored it, if she pretended it was just her imagination, everything would be fine, and hopefully no one else would look closely enough to tell.

When Aoi was four months old, Nana started hearing very deliberate sounds coming from her room at night. Her husband never noticed, he was exhausted from work and slept like a log, but she remained awake through most of the night listening to her baby daughter practice syllables and words like an adult learning a new language. It sent chills down her spine, and she turned around restlessly on the bed, biting her lip.

She remembered her first word very well – after a while of repeating the same sounds over and over, she said, slowly and clearly, _Chris_. It didn't even sound like Japanese, but Nana was certain it was exactly what the baby meant to say as triumphant, childish giggles broke out from the other room.

Nana shivered. Her daughter was unnatural. She was frightened and ashamed of herself for thinking that.

Like most first-time parents, all Nana wanted was a little bundle that she could tickle and snuggle and cuddle with, and Aoi seemed to fill that role most of the time, and Nana convinced herself that it was enough. When, six months later, Aoi let out an excited "Mommy", she pretended to be as delighted as any parent would be at their child's first word, and not like she'd been eavesdropping on her every other night while she fluently spoke an unknown language for the past half year.

* * *

 

Nana remembered the first time she'd taken her outside the house. It must have been when she was three weeks old or so, and Nana was still blissfully ignorant of her daughter's abnormalities. Looking back on it, she realized she should have seen it then.

"Here, Aoi-chan, look. This is Mr. Dog." She pointed at the small garden-gnome, a stupid present from Rai's mother when she married him.

The baby didn't seem to have any interest in the gnome. She was squinting into the distance in the direction of the Hokage mountain. Nana remembered something about babies' eyes not being fully developed, and provided the running commentary, not that it would make a difference, or so she thought. "That's the Hokage mountain. There are four faces on it. That's the first, second, third and fourth Hokages. They're the protectors of Konoha, along with all the other ninja." Aoi's face pulled into an adorable little frown. Nana chuckled to herself. "We can't go visit today. Maybe tomorrow."

As she was about to go back inside the house, Kurenai Yuuhi stepped out from hers, suited up in mission gear. She wandered over and started cooing at Aoi much like every other of her neighbors had at some point after she brought her from the hospital.

Though this time, Aoi did something strange. As Kurenai leaned over her, she reached up, and her fingers caught on the edge of the ninja headband on her forehead and tugged. Kurenai smiled, obliging the silent command to lean closer. "That's a Leaf headband, sunshine." Aoi tugged more insistently with the weirdest look on her face. Kurenai laughed a little and pried her fingers away from it. "No need to be so impatient. If you want one, get your own."

To Nana's surprise, Aoi started screaming her throat out.

* * *

 

When she was fourteen months old, Aoi tugged on her dress. "Mommy! Story, story!"

Nana suppressed a shiver, managing a smile as she picked her up. "Alright, alright." Aoi wriggled happily in her arms while she picked out a book from the bottom level of the living room shelf (they'd arranged them so that all the picture books were at the bottom, and Aoi could reach them easily if she wanted to). She'd almost been dreading this moment, the moment when her genius daughter decided she wanted to learn how to read. Because that was clearly her intention – she'd never shown an interest in the picture books before.

Her suspicions were confirmed when she interrupted frequently to ask "What does this squiggly mean? And this one? And this one?" Her yellow eyes were blazing with intensity as she nodded at Nana's answers, mentally cataloging them.

After two months Aoi stopped asking for stories, and instead, books started disappearing from the shelf. Nana was frozen in place when she realized it wasn't just the picture books.

At night, she heard her come alive, moving about in her room and reading _Basic Haematology_ aloud to herself. During the day she was lethargic and unenthusiastic and fell asleep in the playdates she set up for her. The vague feeling of unease at the pit of Nana's stomach had transformed into a black knot of fear – when her daughter looked at her, Nana couldn't help feeling that those eyes could stare straight into her soul and know exactly what she was thinking.

She was terrified. Of her own daughter.

She was aware of the rumors starting among her relatives, as well. Not about Aoi's fast development – luckily no one else seemed to have noticed, yet – but about her yellow eyes and high cheekbones and general lack of resemblance to Rai. She even caught someone whispering that it made sense he cared so little about his supposed daughter. Nana sighed. Harpies, the lot of them, they didn't even know the whole story. Though even she herself was starting to avoid the toddler more and more often lately.

She placed a hand on her stomach distractedly. Rai seemed more enthusiastic about this pregnancy than the last one, which was understandable. A soft smile lit up her features. Hopefully the new baby would be more… Normal, this time.

The alarms went off while she listened to Aoi read a chapter on emergency medical procedures.

Three short strikes, one long. Hostile invasion. All civilians were to evacuate into the tunnels in the mountain immediately.

That was the only warning before the house started shaking. She shot out of bed and jostled Rai awake, before bursting into her daughter's room and grabbing her arm. She seemed shocked about being caught reading, but Nana had no time to care about any of it as they ran out of the house, wooden beams falling around them.

The rest of the night was confusion and running. At one point Nana looked behind her to see a monstrous shadow silhouetted against the moon, a cluster of tails shaking wildly and slamming into the ground and buildings like demonic chains. The air around the creature seemed to be curling in darkness, seeping upwards from its shape. She'd lived among ninja since she was a little girl but she'd never seen anything like this in her life. She screamed. A particularly violent earthquake threw her daughter and herself apart. Nana landed on her knees and tried to get up, but the ground shook again, and she was slammed against a wall.

She lost consciousness in a few seconds.


	2. Selfish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [selfish: (Of a person, action, or motive) lacking consideration for other people; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A.N.: Tell me what you thought of this one. Better than the last one? Worse? Don't hesitate to be honest.

Aoi woke up in the hospital. Her body hurt all over. Luckily, it wasn't the fiery pain of serious wounds, but the dull ache of bruises. Around her, people ran, yelled and were too busy to pay her any notice.

She remembered the alarms, and that dark silhouette. "Fuck." She looked around, but no one seemed to have heard her.

She'd forgotten about the nine-tails. How could she have forgotten about the nine-tails?

Well, at least she was still alive. She wondered if her parents or any of her relatives were, her mother in particular. Her father had been a boring office man who never gave her a second look, and Aoi didn't really care what happened to him one way or another; but she had a soft spot in her heart for Nana, the simple, cheerful woman who'd loved her in her obliviousness.

The hospital was clearly in need of more personnel. There were too many people wounded and too few nurses. Aoi considered offering to help, before discarding the idea with a snort. A twenty-month-old toddler wasn't supposed to even understand the situation, let alone have any medical training or indeed any kind of education at all.

In the interests of self-preservation she'd done her best to act as a normal baby throughout her short life, drawing on the hazy memories of an introductory lecture on child development. Hallucination or no, she intended to survive here, and the way to do that was to pass unnoticed, not catch the attention of anyone important, and stay the hell away from ninjas. Maybe she'd even make it to legal adulthood this time around.

Yeah, revealing the extent of her medical knowledge was not the way to go.

It turned out no one in her family had survived. The nine-tails had completely crushed the area of Konoha where they were living. Nana had made it to the hospital, but died there before Aoi woke up. Her heart dropped to her stomach. Then she steeled herself and shook her head. A pity, but not like any of these people were real anyway.

The orphanage was a step up in terms of freedom. As long as she didn't cause trouble, no one really paid attention to her. Like the hospital, it was ridiculously understaffed, and that worked out just fine for her. She spent the day wandering around, looking for a dark corner where she could nap. She had a mostly nocturnal schedule, and she wasn't used to being awake during the day.

It had been a bit of effort, to trump her body's circadian rhythms in her infant days. Worth it in the end, because it meant she could blissfully be unconscious while her relatives were around, and she had the night to herself, with no one to notice how her behavior was indeed very strange for a child. It had worked well then and she intended to continue until she was old enough to be considered independent.

When the sun went down, she stirred awake and explored the corridors of the orphanage with enthusiasm, looking for books she could entertain herself with. She didn't find many, unfortunately.

It was frustrating. Books had always been available to her and without them she would probably die, of boredom this time. She knew she had to remedy the situation.

The Kyubi had torn through Konoha like successive natural disasters. Some areas were completely razed. In others, buildings were half-destroyed, trees uprooted, pipes busted, rubble everywhere. Even the ceiling of the orphanage itself was caved in on one corner of the kitchen.

Weeks passed. The roof was repaired and running water and electricity started working again. Some children were taken away from the orphanage by their relatives. Aoi's second birthday went without her or anyone else noticing. She managed to solve her entertainment problem by starting another book collection similar to the one she'd had under her bed at home, making use of the caretakers' workload and lack of attention. First with volumes she acquired from the workers themselves, then with others rescued from the rubble and destruction. Konoha was still healing, and people still trying to recover their belongings, and it wasn't hard to find things whose owners had died or forgotten just lying around on the street, waiting to be picked up by either the cleaning and reconstruction teams, or in this case, a random toddler. She mostly collected medical and historical texts, the former because she still possessed the interest in medicine she'd had in her other life, the latter because she found the obvious censoring and propaganda funny.

_Senju Hashirama and Madara Uchiha joined forces to create the greatest alliance in history. Their ideals of friendship and cooperation were far superior to the credos of any other shinobi clan._

Friendship and cooperation? Hah. Look where that landed them, a century later.

She hardly ever spoke to the children she lived with. They were loud, annoying and she preferred sleeping. She took out her books at night and sat by the window of the common bedroom, where the streetlight shone through. She was never caught or disturbed. She suspected some of the caretakers didn't even know her name.

* * *

Aoi was not. A happy. Camper.

Why? Because so far she'd been doing very well in avoiding people's attention. No one even suspected she was anything but a toddler on the socially awkward side. She hadn't poked her head into anything that reeked of ninja, and she'd managed to keep unnoticed for years. She didn't want attention. She only wanted to live peacefully as a civilian without getting involved in the Plot. And then, when she was five or so, the Plot arrived one day at the orphanage, in the form of a blonde ball of compressed supernova.

Naruto was exactly every bit as she'd imagined. A small, skinny brat with dirty knees and a grin wider than she'd ever seen. Someone that noisy, obnoxious and loud shouldn't be allowed to exist. It breached the rights of Those Who Only Wanted A Quiet Place To Nap. He was put in the same common bedroom as her, so even the relative peacefulness of her own bed was lost.

Naruto snored like a locomotive. Now she had a soundtrack when she wanted to read. Joy.

To her surprise, he blended in nicely. The caretakers didn't treat him any differently than they did the other kids. Daichi, the self-proclaimed Bedroom God (if he hadn't been five that title would have other entertaining connotations), accepted him into his circle immediately. Naruto seemed happy. He didn't miss a chance to proclaim that he was going to become Hokage, Believe It! And he even bragged about being allowed to enter the Academy early because he was going to be such an important ninja. He was the one to initially spread the ninja fever throughout the orphanage, which evolved into a full-blown epidemic. Quiet Places To Nap were a species now extinct.

Aoi avoided him like the plague. Or tried to.

Something poked her side.

"Hey, you."

Aoi twitched. The poke came again. "Hey, you."

She cracked open a sleepy yellow eye. "What do you want?"

"Why you sleep all the time?"

"Because I'm tired. Please, go away." Yes, please, go away. Don't pay attention to me. Take yourself and your stinking story away for a long while, and, above all, don't say anything stupid like -

"Wanna be friends?"

Yeah, like that.

"No." It came out more vicious than she'd intended, and Naruto flinched. This, in turn, startled the kid next to him, who was building a block tower and collapsed it accidentally.

"But I saw you don't have friends. Why you don't wanna be friends?"

"They'll turn around and stab you in the back," she deadpanned. _Literally_. In fact, it was bound to happen very soon in Naruto's case. "I hate you, and if you come near me again I'm going to snap your neck in half," she continued in the same droll voice.

Naruto left her alone after that. She wasn't sorry. She had no desire to be involved in the story and likely suffer a premature death, and she knew he'd turn out fine on his own.

It was around one in the morning that night when he had his first nightmare. Aoi was reading by the window, as usual, when his earthquake snores broke off into a small whimper. She lifted her eyes momentarily before bringing them back down to her book. She was testing herself on her memories of anatomy, and comparing her knowledge to the diagrams in the book.

_Okay, cranial nerves. Olfactory, Optic, Oculomotor. Fourth is Trochlear, Fifth Trigeminal. Abducens and Facial, Vestibulocochlear. Ninth... What was ninth? Glossopharyngeal. Why do they call it Mediaportal?_

Another, louder whimper escaped Naruto's lips. He started thrashing around, shaking the sheets off his body. Something dark and unpleasant invaded the room, and Aoi stopped reading. She recognized that feeling - it was the evil that night with the alarms, the DeathRageRedKill -

The other children were stirring. Aoi's body seemed to be clamped in place. She had the complete certainty that if she even moved one finger the evil energy in the room would know she was there, focus in on her like a magnet and destroy her.

The fact that she could be rendered so helpless by a mere impression, just a _feeling_ , was almost more terrifying than the feeling itself.

_Irrational. You're more likely to die if you don't do something._ She grit her teeth, violently pushing down on it, and raced to his bed. "Naruto, wake up," she ordered, jostling his shoulders. Her hands were trembling.

Naruto opened his eyes. Aoi startled. They were red, and his pupils had contracted into vertical slits. He _screamed_.

That definitely woke up the other children, who started screaming as well. Black symbols appeared on Naruto's stomach and something red seeped upwards, like fire. Aoi staggered back as he convulsed more violently. A shadow and a flash of white mask and she was outside the room. The children started rushing out of the door screaming, or were shoved out if they weren't fast enough, and she caught a glimpse of a white animal mask at the door before it was slammed shut. The children ran as far away from it as possible, but Aoi didn't seem to be able to move her legs, her entire body trembling. Eventually one of the caretakers picked her up and carried her away.

After the incident the adults changed their attitude completely. They abruptly remembered who exactly had put the children they took care of in an orphaned state in the first place. At best they acted like Naruto didn't exist, not putting a plate in front of him at mealtimes and just pretending he wasn't there at all. At worst they mocked him and yelled at him to 'get out of my sight, you monster, or I'll cut your legs off.' She'd never seen any of them actually hit him, but had spotted bruises on Naruto's face a couple of times.

The children were quick to catch on to the hostility in the air. Daichi bullied him, destroyed his blankets and took his clothes. They shunned him and made fun of him at every opportunity. Naruto coped with it as one would expect a four-year-old to cope, which was not well at all.

He cried himself to sleep every night now. Aoi patiently waited for him to finish before getting up and starting on her books.

One day, she entered the common bedroom with the intention of catching some sleep before dinner. Daichi and his friends had been there, tossing Naruto's goggles around while he stood in the middle and tried to catch them. "Give them back! I dain't do nothing to you!"

"Why do you want stupid goggles anyway, huh? They're so ugly it's disgusting." He held them out in front of himself by two fingers. Naruto reached for them, but he giggled and chucked them to someone else.

"Give them back!" Naruto looked close to tears.

"Shut up. A monster like you doesn't deserve to have goggles even if they're ugly ass goggles."

"I'm not a monster!"

Aoi turned on her heel and walked right out. Everything would sort itself out eventually - she had no desire to be involved in any of it. And if Naruto's goggles were cracked the next morning, and he had a black eye, well, it was none of her business.

At least she'd warned him.

It didn't last for very long. Naruto was eventually moved out of the orphanage and taken to his own apartment, for his own safety or the children's safety, Aoi didn't know. Daichi organized a special goodbye which consisted in throwing wet paper balls at him from their bedroom's window while he stood outside, waiting for whoever was meant to pick him up. Naruto snarled at them and gave them the finger, but Daichi just snickered and aimed a ball at his head. He didn't miss.

After Naruto left, everything more or less returned to normal. The children still wanted to become ninja. Daichi was still the leader of the bedroom. He'd stopped trying to include her long ago, when it became clear that all Aoi was interested in was napping and reading.

No one spoke of Naruto again.

Crisis successfully averted.

* * *

ANBU Hound was waiting, muscles coiled and ready to spring. He wasn't supposed to be here. In fact, his Hokage had explicitly ordered not to be here - but he couldn't just stand by when something of this magnitude was unfolding before his eyes. Being forced to sit there watching helplessly that time with the Nine Tails had been bad enough. He wasn't going to go through that again.

He smelled it first. The rancid, unpleasant smell of blood, and metal and something else that made him recoil almost instantly. He tried not to think of the implications of this - then steeled himself. _Relax. Wait._ His mind slipped into the perfect clarity he was used to, the calm state of mind that allowed him to make split-second, life-or-death decisions no matter the stakes.

A man emerged from the cave entrance he was watching, deathly pale skin and eyes that radiated so much intent he had to remind himself to breathe again. Orochimaru turned, head tilting in his direction. Hound stepped out from the shadows with the lithe fluidity of a dancer, every step silent and deliberate. His hand was fisted in lightning, crackling and sharper than a sword's edge. There was no use in hiding if the target already knew he was there. Besides, Chidori wasn't for hiding. It was feared because even those who saw it coming could do nothing to evade their inevitable fate.

Orochimaru smiled. Hound charged without a word.

He moved _fast_ , faster than Hound had ever seen anyone move, with the sole exception of Minato-sensei. His neck twisted unnaturally to avoid the lightning. It barely grazed his shoulder, and then Hound was the one who had to dodge, a kunai threatening to split his head open. The kunai still scraped along the middle of his mask as the momentum from Chidori prevented him from dodging completely.

The lightning impacted into the ground and Hound's white ceramic mask fell away in two neat halves. He took a deep breath. Turned around. His red eye spun dangerously.

A snake slithered down and wrapped around Orochimaru's arm. The Sannin stroked its scales almost tenderly. "I like that look in your eye."

_Wait. Stay still_. _Don't give it away yet._

"But I don't need a fake." The smile was thin and predatory.

_And get the hell away now or that explosion will blast you into next week!_ The tag was in the snake's mouth and it caught the target at point-blank range.

_Roll, get up._ "Don't move," he snarled, as the smoke cleared and Orochimaru glared back, arm covered in dark blood to the shoulder and pressed into his side. The smell hit Hound like a ton of bricks and he cut off chakra circulation to his nose, crouching further and holding a kunai up defensively.

"I see. Not bad." Orochimaru's eyes narrowed and his tongue flicked out, catching a drop of blood on his cheek. Bits of snake were strewn about on the ground. The forest was silent, so silent it was oppressive. The tongue flicked out again.

A shiver ran down Hound's spine at the sudden wave of killing intent that emanated from the Sannin, evil, dark, thick, suffocating the air out of his lungs. It wasn't even directed at him in particular, it was just a wave of raw power and bloodthirst, but suddenly he was incapable of moving. Even the air was still, as if the whole world was afraid to breathe. A drop of sweat rolled down his nose. Even wounded, even with his chakra depleted as it no doubt was, Orochimaru was so far above him Hound didn't stand a _chance_. He was going to get _skewered_.

"Give the old monkey a message, would you? Thank him for letting me go. And... Tell him to take care of my little present."

Another droplet of sweat rolled down his skin as the target walked away into the forest, and Hound did absolutely nothing but stand frozen and watch him go.


	3. Cautious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [cautious: (of a person) careful to avoid potential problems or dangers.]

Hound wondered why he was stuck babysitting. Again.

First it had been the... Naruto. For a whole week. Not much of a report there, except that he'd make a good ambush and trap specialist in the future. Now this other orphan, who seemed to spend her whole day sleeping and ignoring everyone else. Part of him approved - that would have been more or less his choice, too, if he was locked in a room with five-and-six-year-olds. Still, one would think that an ANBU operative with his skill set would be doing more exciting stuff than watching children.

The fact that said children were the nine-tails Jiinchuriki and the daughter of possibly the most dangerous missing-nin in the elemental nations didn't really justify it, in his opinion.

He wondered if he'd get in trouble for reading on the job. He glanced at the kid again. Still sleeping. His fingers crept towards his waist-pouch.

The sun set without any interesting events save for a woman down the road tripping and dropping her groceries. She flipped out when an ANBU appeared out of nowhere to help pick them up, and stuttered over herself thanking him. He was bored _,_ and she'd been pretty.

 _Oh, look at that._ The kid was getting up from her bed and heading towards the window. He quickly cast an area distortion genjutsu over himself and watched a bit incredulously as she settled down to read a heavy book.

She left after a while and returned with an apple and a bag of cookies. Hound frowned - didn't they lock the kitchen at night? He sneaked inside the building and tried the kitchen door. Yep. Locked. She'd either stolen a key, managed get in without a key, or sneaked out the snack earlier during the day, while the cooks were inside.

Any of the three options was promising.

She went back to sleep at about sunrise. Hound waited for another hour before starting a silent search around the room while the kids snored. He found the book in the most obvious hiding-place, under her bed, which meant she wasn't as smart as he'd thought or she was confident no one would actively look for it. _Comprehensive Neuroscience._ Probably the latter, he decided, as he flicked through a few pages.

He gave the sleeping child on the bed an appraising glance and put the book back as it'd been. Before leaving he thoughtfully left behind his pocket flashlight mixed in among the other toys strewn about on the floor. Wouldn't want her to strain her eyes too much.

* * *

 

In retrospect, Aoi would wonder what had taken them so long to summon her to the Hokage's office. Beforehand, she was nervous and fidgety and kept trying to remember an instance in which she'd attracted too much attention, but couldn't find one, and that only unnerved her more because it meant she was flying blind.

As far as she knew, she hadn't done anything worthy of the Hokage singling her out. She was known as bright at the orphanage, certainly, but she'd thought no one had really cared enough to act on it.

She bit her lip without realizing she was imitating one of Nana's habits from when she was very young.

"Have you thought about what to do when you're older, Aoi-chan?"

Oh yeah, the suffixes. Despite her six years of culture immersion, it was the one thing she found incompatible with her speech. Maybe because she was too lazy to use any embellishments at all. When she could, she just ignored them. She was young enough to get away with it most of the time.

But the question itself was worrying, because it meant that, even if Aoi hadn't considered her future, the Hokage certainly had. "I want to be a plastic surgeon," she replied seriously. She didn't know if that even existed here but she sure as hell wasn't going to say ninja like the old man expected her to. Hopefully the answer was idiotic enough that they'd leave her alone for a few more years.

The Hokage was perplexed, and then laughed a little. "What about a ninja, Aoi-chan?"

"Plastic surgeons are cooler. They make people pretty." And yes, that did summon another confused face, because it was a very strange thing for a child of Konoha to not be affected by the constant exposure to mental and social conditioning that painted ninja as the best thing to happen since the doughnut.

The Hokage, recovering from the shock, smiled once more. "That's a perfectly valid occupation, Aoi-chan. But remember that there are many options available to you. Your dad is a shinobi, did you know?"

Aoi shook her head, though she noted the implication that her father was not in fact dead. Somehow she had a feeling the Hokage wasn't talking about the office man she'd lived with during the first twenty months of her life.

"He was an outstanding ninja, one in his generation." Well, that was certainly not the office man. Nana had really been cheating. Interesting.

She didn't like the way this conversation was going. "What was his name?"

"Orochimaru."

Aoi's mind drew up a blank.

Come again?

She'd never given much thought to her yellow eyes because those shades weren't that rare here. She knew she must have gotten them from somewhere, but she'd seen enough goldish or honeyish eyes around to not make the connection to a specific individual. And the high cheekbones were an equally non-defining feature. She had enough of her mother in her that she'd never linked the resemblance to anyone in particular.

And out of all people, it had to be Orochimaru. Possibly the most fucked-up, insane, deranged bastard in existence. How was that for karmic retribution.

Shit. But she had to answer. Preferably stall. "He was a great ninja?"

"Yes. He was very intelligent, like you. He was a genius in the ninja arts. You might be good at it too." The look changed into one of bland interest. "You never met him, did you?"

"No." Why now? Had he defected from Konoha already? "Where is he?"

"He left Konoha a while ago. Are you sure you've never heard of him before today, Aoi-chan?"

She choked. "Yeah."

While Aoi's mind whirred to process the new information, another man appeared in the office. Her head whipped towards the shadows as soon as she spotted movement. The man was tall, and wide, and imposing in a way completely different from the Hokage. Whereas the Hokage's gestures and expressions seemed to command a transparent form of respect, tied to an impression of kindness and compassion if he wished, the new arrival's authority was murkier, darker, dangerous. And by the calm way he stood, and the Hokage's non-existent reaction, it was clear he'd been there the whole time.

"I'll train her, Hiruzen."

"If the child doesn't want to be shinobi, Danzo, we can't force her to be."

Danzo? Why was Danzo here? Aoi felt like she was being royally mindfucked. An hour ago she was perfectly content reading her books at the orphanage, with the prospect of an absolutely boring but peaceful civilian life ahead of her. And now she found out she had a sick bastard for a father and another sick bastard wanted to kidnap her and turn her into a mindless puppet.

Fantastic.

* * *

 

Danzo looked at the child for a second, his single eye unreadable. She seemed a bit lost, and not really paying attention to the conversation, so he focused on Hiruzen. "You've grown soft. If she has her father's potential, we can't afford to waste it. You know just as well as I do how outstanding she already is."

He'd put a Root spy on the kid much before Orochimaru defected. Yes, he'd had plans for her for a long time - only the fact that her father was in the village had prevented him from carrying them out. And his defection would have been the best occasion to take her - except that Hiruzen had reacted surprisingly quickly and stuck her with his own ANBU. Danzo's only option had been to withdraw.

Still, the reports he got were enough. The fact that Aoi managed to hide her own brilliance from the people around her was almost more impressive than the advanced medical texts she read, that even Danzo himself had trouble understanding. The girl was on the way to become a genius medic and infiltrator already. If she had her father's talent for the other ninja arts, well... He wasn't going to let the chance slip.

Despite this, the old fool was anchored in his ridiculous idealism. "Forcing a child into a path she doesn't want will not make her a good shinobi. She might even resent us for it afterwards." Unspoken was the fear that by training her they would be giving her the tools to hurt the village as her father so recently had.

Danzo was too good to roll his eyes. The discovery and abortion of Orochimaru's experiments was a shame, because they'd been on the road to yield interesting results. In a couple of years, perhaps, they would have... He flexed his arm. But the Hokage was too soft to understand that certain sacrifices were necessary for the greater good, and he was frightened of the kid taking the same path as the father.

"Under my tutelage she won't grow to be anything but loyal to Konoha." Somewhere underneath the reassurance was the accusation of Hiruzen himself failing at that very task. Danzo was nothing if not a good conversationalist.

The Hokage didn't say anything.

"It's not like she really has a choice," Danzo continued. "He will come back for her eventually, and unless you intend to keep your elite forces on her permanently, which may I remind you, Konoha can't afford, she needs to be trained. So let me do that. I'll ensure she's safe."

He paused to let that sink in. Having her in Root would really be ideal until he decided how to handle the new situation with Orochimaru. Independently of her skills, she'd make good leverage both with Hiruzen for the emotional value and the Sannin for whatever he wanted to do with her. "Remember how powerful her father is. Imagine having another ninja of that caliber in Konoha's ranks. If we do nothing, we're leaving a weapon lying around which could be picked up and used against us at any time."

The Hokage looked out the window pensively. "I suppose it would be best if she was trained. For her own safety if nothing else."

 _Come on, you coward, say yes._ Danzo kept his face blank as the silence stretched.

Surprisingly, Aoi was the one to break it. "I've changed my mind," she announced. "I want to be a ninja like my dad."

Perfect.

"I want to go to the Academy with Daichi."

Danzo's eye snapped to her. She was staring intently at the Hokage, almost pleading. The convenient timing of the request was almost suspicious. It was as if she knew that Danzo didn't plan on taking her to the Academy at all, and was trying to oppose him.

Which was, of course, ridiculous. She was a genius, not a mind reader.

He'd have to look into this Daichi. If he eliminated Aoi's reason to go to the Academy, it'd be simpler to ease her into Root. Though he supposed he could allow ninja school for a year or so before making his move, if only to lull Hiruzen into a sense of security. Seven years old was still young and supple enough to be polished and modeled into a perfect, loyal weapon.

Hiruzen seemed ridiculously satisfied with the child's answer. "That's great, Aoi-chan. What do you think, Danzo? The Academy is a good place to start. We can decide what to do with her later." _Depending on how she turns out,_ went unsaid.

Danzo bowed his head in acceptance.

"Before you go, Aoi." The Hokage's expression was grave. "Your father... served Konoha well. He truly was a powerful ninja. But..." It was pitiful, to see him struggle with the words, even if he didn't show it outwardly. Danzo had known him for long enough to tell. "He's left the village. We don't know exactly what happened yet. For your own safety, it's best if you don't tell anyone who he is, at least for now."

"Sentimental fool," Danzo muttered once the kid was dismissed.

Hiruzen sighed. Danzo could plainly see the betrayal of the Sannin etched on his face. The girl wasn't a spitting image of Orochimaru, but she was close enough that the Hokage would feel like he was looking into the eyes of his old student again. "I want to see how she does in the Academy before deciding anything."

"I understand."

He could let Hiruzen think he'd won this battle and retreat, for now.

* * *

 

Aoi leaned her head on her hand, letting her eyes trace the cracks in the ceiling.

She'd pieced together what had happened, more or less. Orochimaru had defected from the village approximately six months ago. (And it was still hard to imagine that before that, the monster had been one of Konoha's heroes). And then they'd somehow found out he'd left a brat behind. Aoi was pretty sure Konoha hadn't known about her before the Sannin left.

Maybe Danzo had. He knew everything.

But this pretty much fucked up her plans for a peaceful life. Her father wouldn't leave her alone if he knew of her existence, which he surely did. There was no way the creep had had a child by accident. She had no idea why he hadn't attempted any contact with her in six years, but he must be aware she existed. Maybe he was waiting for her to grow up before taking her body, a disgusting possibility, but way too likely to happen to not prepare for it.

Aoi wasn't letting her body be taken by anyone, much less that sicko, not after being given a second chance at life. And she also had to avoid Danzo at all costs, because she didn't fancy being brainwashed into working for him like a slave. If Orochimaru wanted her body, Danzo wanted her mind, and that was equally unacceptable.

Hence her statement about going to the Academy. It was the safest option available at the time and thankfully the Hokage seemed to sense her desperation and agreed. The Academy ensured another six years of relative safety, as long as she didn't graduate early.

Dammit, despite all her efforts, the universe had turned around and bit her in the ass. She supposed her knowledge of the future gave her a bit of an edge - she'd be able to avoid all the upcoming wars and battles, if she was careful enough. Maybe if she timed her future missions to be away from Konoha while Orochimaru was in it she'd be able to stay safe.

Why did she have to be reincarnated into the snake's daughter, anyway? Hadn't there been other newborns around?

There were very few things that motivated Aoi Momoru, but, fortunately, self-preservation was number one on the short list.


	4. Indifferent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [indifferent: 1. Having no particular interest or concern. 2. Having no bias or prejudice; impartial. 3. Being neither good nor bad.]

Kurenai Yuuhi wasn't one for terrifying children. Oh, like most ninja she had a sadistic streak, but usually she drew the line at psychological torture of six-year-old orphans.

"It might seem hard and unyouthful, but remember you're doing them a favor!"

"Easy for you to say," she muttered. Gai had been around a few days ago, playing the good cop to her bad cop. To hear him tell it, the children had been inspired and awed by his youthfulness and all wanted to follow in his footsteps and become awesome ninja. "See you later."

For once, he hadn't exaggerated. They actually rushed to her with eager faces when they heard another Jounin was coming with their registration forms. She felt rotten, knowing she was going to crush their dreams, but she had a job to do, and Kurenai's missions had always been completed spotlessly.

They sat down on the floor, making hushing noises amongst themselves and waiting for her to speak, eyes shining.

Her features arranged themselves in a ruthless, twisted mask, and she roughly kicked the nearest kid onto his back. "So you lot want to be ninjas, huh? You think orphans like you have what it takes? Please. You're pathetic."

Their horrified expressions made her feel like she'd just kicked a puppy. "You're so weak it's almost funny. You'll be crushed by all the clan children you'll meet at the Academy. They're the true ninjas. You're just the useless ones we toss into the battlefield and use as cannon-fodder."

A hesitant voice broke the silence. "But Gai-san said-"

"But Gai-san said," Kurenai mocked in a high pitch. "You think what Gai-san said is true? It was all a lie. Ninja are killers and monsters who rip other's throats out." She bent down and sneered in the face of the kid, who looked close to tears, and from the back of her mind cast a mild genjutsu to make the room appear darker and colder. The boy started bawling outright when the shadows shifted around her like tentacles. "Crybaby," she spat in his face, before straightening up.

"Cowards like you will just die," she growled. "If you're alright with that, then stay. If you want a long, boring life, then you'd better leave this room." Her smile was bloodthirsty, her eyes glowed a demonic red and the shadows loomed behind her. They rushed out the door in a cacophony of screams and sobs.

Only three children remained. That was a bit less than she was aiming for, so maybe she'd overdone it? She released the genjutsu, truly feeling bad now.

One was a boy with short brown hair, and he stood defiantly with his arms crossed. "My name's Daichi, and I'm not a coward," he said. Kurenai noted that his knuckles were scraped, and his knees were skinned - that kind of orphan, then. The kind who'd seen enough of the ugly world that being a ninja didn't sound as bad as other things they'd experienced. Kurenai caught herself before her expression softened and moved on.

The second was a small boy with dirty blonde hair and big, dark eyes, who started trembling when her eyes landed on him. "I - I still wadda be a ninja," he sobbed, "I promised my kaa-chan." Now that was the kind she was looking for. Brave enough to stand up even when he was nearly pissing his pants in fear.

The last was a bit of a puzzle. She was sitting in a corner of the room, her chin tucked in her chest, which rose and fell with her breathing... She was sleeping?

"You, at the back," Kurenai snarled. "Are you sure you don't want to take your nap somewhere else? Weak little girls are the first to die."

She had the gall to yawn silently before looking up. Her eyes were a weird shade of yellow, but then again, it wasn't like Kurenai herself had room to talk. Her reply, too, was definitely not what she expected. "I would, but I don't really have a choice. All my other options stink."

The girl stared blandly for another second before looking up at the ceiling, biting her lip distractedly.

Kurenai blinked, not knowing what to make of that. "Come sign the forms, then," she said briskly, getting them out and putting them on the table.

Out of curiosity, she decided to hang around a bit after the paperwork was cleared, using a chameleon genjutsu to conceal her presence. There was just something about this trio. As soon as she apparently left the room, the two boys started chatting, excited about finally becoming ninja. The girl lay back down, ignoring them both.

"I don't get it," the one named Daichi whined. "Why did that lady do that? It was so stupid."

"It was scary," the small blonde kid agreed.

"Do you mind being quiet for a bit? Trying to sleep here."

Kurenai frowned. The boys obediently lowered their voices. That was it? She was just going back to sleep?

After a whispered debate with his partner, Daichi approached her and nudged her with his foot. "Hey, Aoi, do you know why she did that?"

A groan from the ground and something that sounded like 'leave me alone'.

"I mean, before she came, everyone wanted to be a ninja, and now there's just three of us."

Aoi snapped her eyes open, glaring. "That was the point."

"Huh?"

"That was the point. They needed to bring down the number of orphans who enter the Academy. Ninja school can't take all the children in Konoha, and they won't stop people who actually _pay_ the fees from entering. They cut back on the orphans."

Daichi stared, mouth slowly opening in shock.

"Most likely each orphanage has a fixed number of children they can send to the Academy every year. Gai and Kurenai came to make sure that no more than that fixed number enrolled. They were selecting us."

Kurenai smiled. Well well. Look at that. She was a little genius.

"Bu-But that's unfair," the blonde kid protested. "Doesn't that mean that orphans have less chances of being shinobi than normal children?"

Aoi shrugged as best as she could from her prone position. "Guess so. Konoha has to pay for us, after all. And if they're scared away after a tiny bit of half-assed intimidation, they won't make it far as ninja either way." She yawned again. "It's nothing to get upset over."

* * *

 

"Aoi-chan, wake up, please."

Aoi lifted her head from her arms and blinked wearily. Too. Sunny. At this hour, she was supposed to be in the stages III or IV of deep sleep. She plopped her head back down.

"Aoi Momoru," Mizuki repeated, an edge of steel creeping into his voice, "if you ignore me again I'll stick you with a detention." Someone in the class snickered.

The Academy was more or less what she'd expected it to be. The only difference with her first schooling she'd spotted so far was an inordinate amount of PE classes and not-so-subtle propaganda for the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Their first lesson had been on the greatness of the Will of Fire. She'd slept through it too. Mizuki didn't like her.

She didn't understand why, really. If she'd been teaching, she'd leave the quiet kids who didn't cause trouble alone, and clamp down on people like Rock Lee, who kept jumping around and babbling nonsense about how could she be sleeping when this was their second glorious week at the Academy and - she tuned out the rest of it to protect her sanity.

On another note, she'd been surprised to have Mizuki as a teacher. It seemed her life was full of sick bastards - but she supposed that she shouldn't get involved. Naruto would sort it out eventually. Daichi elbowed her in the ribs, which caused her to flinch and straighten. "Yes, Mizuki."

A vein popped in his forehead. "Detention."

Huh? "Why?"

"Honorifics," Daichi hissed under his breath.

Oh. She was supposed to say Mizuki- _sensei_. Well, since he'd already given her the detention... her head fell on her desk with a plop and she went back to sleep.

Daichi snorted, amused, and dug a finger into his nose. Before she fell into the blissful oblivion of the dream-world she heard a quiet voice which sounded suspiciously like Neji Hyuga say something along the lines of "What a loser." She also heard one of his fangirls squee.

Geeze. They were two weeks in, and it was already starting.

Daichi amused himself with braiding his sleeping desk mate's hair and poking her with his pencils, while Mizuki said something about subtraction that he didn't understand.

The next time Aoi opened her eyes she was alone in the classroom with Mizuki and Rock Lee. She blinked, reorienting herself. Was it over already? That was the trouble with falling asleep in the middle of the day.

"Just in time, Aoi-chan," her teacher said with mock sweetness. He dropped a bunch of cleaning utensils in Lee's expecting arms and headed for the door. "For your detention, please clean the ceiling. You can come see me in the teachers' office when you're done, and then you can go home."

Lee juggled with the mops and ended up falling over. Aoi looked up at the ceiling with a detached interest, noticing a brown stain the size of a big dinner plate on it. Then she was distracted by a badly-made braid in her black hair which she didn't remember being there before.

Lee managed to get up. "I wasn't hurt at all!" he proclaimed to the empty room. He looked nothing like what she remembered. His hair was the same vibrant black, but it fell down his back in a long braid; and his clothes were of distinct Chinese inspiration. He had puffy cheeks and huge, round eyes. He was even cute, in his six-year-old way. Aoi shivered when she remembered the monstrosity he would become.

"How are we going to clean it?"

"You could stand on the desk or something." How had that huge-ass stain even gotten there in the first place? She had a feeling she didn't want to know.

"Awesome idea, Aoi-san!" He climbed on the desk with some difficulty and reached up with one of the mops. When it became evident he was too short to reach the ceiling, he started jumping and waving the mop around. Aoi sighed. She was feeling awake now and wanted to go back to the orphanage and read the book she'd started last night. It was on the chakra pathway system and tenketsu, which she was very curious about. She knew little about chakra after all, in comparison to the rest of the body.

"Lee, stay still for a moment."

"Yes, Aoi-san!"

She climbed up on the desk as well. "Crouch."

"Yes, Aoi-san!"

She sat on his shoulders, one leg on either side of his neck. Lee made a noise of protest, but she cut him off. "Can you stand up? Keep a hand on my legs so I don't fall."

Lee wobbled a bit, but in the end did manage to stand up and passed her the mop. "I haven't known you for very long, Aoi-san, but I'm already impressed! This strategy of yours is most effective! I would have never thought of -"

"Tell me when you're tired. I don't wanna fall from up here."

"Yes, Aoi-san!"

She started cleaning the stain, trying to not think too much about the way Lee was wobbling underneath her. "How did you end up in detention anyway, Lee?"

"Ah, such familiarity in using my name! Well, Mizuki-sensei said I was too loud, and I got detention as punishment! But that's alright, I'll learn to be an excellent student even if it kills me!"

Aoi sighed and tuned out his babbles for the duration of the task. There were three-hundred and sixty-one tenketsu in the human body. As far as she'd understood so far, they acted as internal and external checkpoints, or gateways for chakra movement. Internally, they opened or closed pathways to reach peripheral organs or limbs - for example, the tenketsu in the shoulder controlled chakra flow into the whole arm. But they also acted as points for external expulsion of chakra, and blocking a tenketsu through which the user was trying to expel chakra could cause the vessels around it to burst, as well as it being a means of controlling chakra flow. Interesting stuff.

"Lee, I told you to warn me if you got tired."

"I-I'm not tired, Aoi-chan!" His voice was clearly straining with effort.

"It's alright, I'm done." She managed to climb down from the dangerously leaning tower without incident. "Can you tell Mizuki?"

"Of course!"

"Great. Bye."

She left, paying no heed to Lee's proclamations about completing the mission she'd assigned him or his promises of eternal friendship.


	5. Lazy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [lazy: Unwilling to work or use energy.]

Most of the class didn't seem to be able to stick the leaf to their forehead.

Neji Hyuuga, as expected, had no trouble with it. Neither did Ruko Uchiha, and it predictably turned into a contest to see which of them could keep it there for longer. It was amusing to see the two kids sitting opposite each other with their knees nearly touching, glowering with a deadly intensity as if with the power of their eyes alone they'd be able to knock the other's leaf off. Then again, the clans were so proud of their respective doujutsu that maybe they truly believed it was possible.

Unfortunately, the scale of the conflict was much larger than that as the girls in the class had divided into two factions and were either cheering or shouting at the opposing faction. And the rest of the boys were simply staring with envy and forgetting about their own leaves.

Mizuki sighed. While they weren't supposed to master this exercise for a few months, at the rate it was going he'd have to devise rotations for detention so he could force them to work on it.

Then there was Aoi Momoru, who for once wasn't sleeping and had wandered over to see what the fuss was about. Her own leaf was firmly secured on her forehead and Mizuki grudgingly admitted to himself that she probably had the best control of the three.

He waited for it to implode.

"Why are you in a staring contest?"

The Uchiha's eyes narrowed, but never left his opponent's face. "'S not a staring contest."

She blinked. "Okay. Can you tell your fangirls to calm down a bit? They're quite noisy."

"Shut up, loser," Neji hissed through clenched teeth.

Aoi stared at him contemplatively for a while. Her sluggish, slow way of moving had always reminded Mizuki of an owl, with the yellow eyes and all. He expected her to shrug and go back to her corner, but instead she leaned over and blew on his leaf, which fluttered to the ground.

The fangirls gasped dramatically. One of the boys that was usually with Aoi - Daichi, wasn't it? - laughed, while the blonde one sighed and glared at his own leaf.

Neji jumped up, cheeks red with fury. "Why did you do that, you stupid girl?"

"Don't be sore, Hyuuga. I was gonna win anyway." The Uchiha stood up too and contentedly patted himself down.

"Was not!"

Mizuki closed his eyes. This was not happening.

"Was too!"

"Was not!"

"Was too!"

"Was not times infinity plus one!" Neji's smirk radiated smugness.

"Technically, _I_ won," Aoi pointed out blandly. Both boys turned on her to see that she did, indeed, still have her leaf on her forehead. Ruko's had dropped when he'd jabbed a finger into Neji's shoulder.

It was such a rare occurrence to actually see her interact with her classmates that Mizuki let it go on for quite a while just to see what she would do. It turned out that was giving _Mizuki_ a suffering look as if asking, you've had your fun, can you do something about this now?

When he finally ordered the children back to their seats, she looked relieved and promptly dropped her head on the table and fell asleep.

* * *

 

Hiruzen crossed his fingers and leaned his chin on them thoughtfully.

In front of him, on the desk, were the mid-year evaluations of the youngest class of Academy students. Their teacher believed the position of Rookie of the Year would be disputed by Ruko Uchiha and Neji Hyuga, and the tail end of the class was comprised of Rock Lee and a few other civilian-born students.

The Academy curriculum was theoretically tailored so that by graduation, they would be standing on more equal ground with the clan children, but that didn't take into account the extra training they did or didn't have at home. Hiruzen had long ago given up on the issue - there was just no compensating for the tremendous boost provided by some bloodline limits. Hyugas and Uchihas were normally top of the class, hands down. With the occasional Yamanaka taking their place when neither of those two clans had children in that year.

Aoi Momoru was somewhere in the nondescript middle. _Her chakra control is quite advanced,_ the report read _, but her written test scores are average and she doesn't make an effort in any kind of physical activity. Furthermore, she doesn't associate with her classmates, almost as if she didn't think of them as peers. She needs to be more involved in the lessons._

Hiruzen sighed and straightened. "Hound," he called. The ANBU operative shuunshined to kneel in front of his desk, head bowed.

"Take a look at this."

Hiruzen watched as Hound read over the report silently. "What do you think? I'm asking you because you were the one who's been assigned to watch her." He knew his interest in the girl puzzled his subordinate despite being aware of the Orochimaru connection, and Hiruzen himself admitted that this was probably overreacting. But Hound had never asked questions, he only followed orders.

"Well," he started, straightening, "it's obvious that she's hiding her abilities, Hokage-sama. No one who can read the kind of books she does would score anything less than perfect on a first year paper test."

Hiruzen lifted an unimpressed eyebrow. Yes, that was fairly obvious.

Hound sighed. "At first glance, it would seem she's just a lazy genius. If I didn't know her, I'd say she was a Nara." He paused. "Except she isn't actually lazy. She spends the whole night awake reading medical texts and practicing chakra control. Frankly, I'm surprised it's only 'advanced' - she might be holding back in that area too. She studies unusually hard, and yet doesn't want anyone to know about it. She very deliberately is leading her sensei and peers to underestimate her abilities."

Hiruzen tapped his fingers on the table. "Yes. Do you have any idea why?"

Hound hesitated. "Children strive for recognition, particularly the recognition of adults. If she really wanted to be a good Konoha ninja, she wouldn't hide her hard work, she'd show it off."

"Hm."

"I don't see any reason for a child that age to act that way without outside encouragement."

"You think she's following orders," Hiruzen stated in disbelief. No, that was impossible. If Orochimaru...

Hound shrugged, the motion someohow graceful and lazy at the same time. "If she'd just now moved to Konoha, I would have definitely pegged her as some sort of infiltrator. But the indifference to her classmates doesn't fit. If she had malicious intent, she'd try to get close to them to avoid suspicion. I don't think she sees Konoha in a hostile manner. Maybe she's waiting for them to catch up."

Really, Hiruzen thought, sometimes he forgot Hound was labelled a genius in his Academy days as well. "So what is she doing then?"

"I'm not sure," he replied with what Hiruzen assumed was a straight face. The porcelain mask made it kind of hard to tell. "I'd say she's training herself while trying to avoid attention so as not to graduate early. Perhaps in the hopes of quickly improving her skills above what's required while keeping away from dangerous missions. Though that seems a bit paranoid and contrived for a seven-year-old. I certainly hadn't though of it."

That was when Hiruzen realized Hound was drawing his conclusions from personal experience. He grimaced at the parallel - and at the reminder of how exactly his subordinate had lost his parental guidance.

He exhaled loudly and rubbed his temples.

_I'm too old for this job. I need a successor._ He sneaked a glance at Hound, still standing at relaxed attention in front of him. How old was he, nineteen, twenty? Maybe wait a few more years, then. Hiruzen hid a smile as he imagined his reaction when the topic was sprung on him. "Thank you, Hound."

Hound shuunshined away, returning to his watch.

Well. Now, to make a decision. Shinobi who didn't buy into the Will of Fire were still manageable, but Hiruzen had already made the mistake of being too indulgent once in the past. And he didn't intend to repeat it.

* * *

 

Lee and Aoi looked up at the brown stain.

"I thought we cleaned it at the beginning of the year," she deadpanned. "Why is it there again?"

"Maybe it regenerates, Aoi-chan," Lee replied in a serious tone that made the suggestion seem completely reasonable.

He resignedly climbed on the desk and crouched. "Hang on, Lee. I want to try something else this time." She walked to one of the walls and put both hands on it, then yanked. They remained stuck.

Aoi frowned, yanked again, and fell on the floor from the extra force. "Damn." She got up and tried again.

Carefully, she unstuck her right hand and placed it a bit higher on the wall. Then she looked down and placed the flat of her right foot against it. "What are you doing, Aoi-chan?" Experimentally, she hoisted her weight up on that foot, and when it held, hopped and stuck the other one to the wall as well.

Lee watched in amazement as Aoi started crawling up the wall like a spider, slowly at first, then faster as she gained confidence.

She eventually arrived to the junction of the wall and the ceiling, and transferred her hands, advanced a bit, then her feet. She crawled upside-down on the ceiling for a few more steps, short black hair hanging limply down, before she paused. "Lee, I'm going to fall."

"I'll catch you!"

"I don't think that's a good - aaaah! - ooomph. You alright?"

Mizuki popped his head into the classroom, saw them sprawled on the floor, and blinked. "Hurry up, kids. I don't have all day." He popped back out.

Lee shoved Aoi off him and jumped up. "That was so cool, Aoi-chan! Can you teach me how to do it?"

She evaluated him silently, yellow eyes fixing on him for a moment before drifting back up to the ceiling. "No."

Lee seemed heartbroken and gave her _puppy-eyes_. At this point in time, he was nothing like the green disaster of the future. He was a seven-year-old kid with admittedly thick eyebrows but cute nonetheless, with his long braid and parted bangs. Puppy-eyes were still an effective tool on his arsenal. Aoi herself had never been able to pull it off. People were usually made uncomfortable by her eyes more than anything else.

She sighed. "You should find out how to do it on your own. There are no shortcuts to being a ninja." She wasn't going to spend her time teaching brats. That was Mizuki's job.

He seemed to swallow it whole. "I'm inspired by your words! I'll-"

"Yeah, yeah. Let's finish with the stain."

When she saw the grey-haired shinobi casually leaning against a fence on the way out of the Academy, Aoi grabbed Lee's arm and spun them around. "Hang on, Lee, I forgot something." She walked back inside the building, dragging him behind her.

No, it wasn't Hatake Kakashi. That would have been too good. Out of all the characters in the series, Kakashi was the one she might one day randomly approach to ask for an autograph. He was the only reason why she even read the damn manga in the first place.

"What's up, Aoi-chan?"

"The ninja waiting outside is part of an organization whose leader sponsored my father's sick experiments and wants to overthrow the current Hokage. Or he might already be my father's right-hand man, acting as a spy in said organization. He's also sadistic and deeply deranged."

Lee blinked.

Aoi threw the window of the classroom open and jumped onto the grass outside. "Are you coming?"

They circled the building and left Academy grounds from the opposite side from where Kabuto had been waiting. Aoi checked behind them as they walked, just in case. No one. Whew.

"Ah, excuse me, you dropped this."

She jumped and turned. Shit.

Kabuto was smiling, holding out one of her pencils. He looked to be about twelve, maybe thirteen, his cheeks slightly rounder than before (after) and with his dorky glasses and stupid smile that made him look like he couldn't hurt a fly if he tried. Of course, his harmless facade had no effect on Aoi. She was perfectly aware that guy was just as sick as her father, even at thirteen. Her tongue dried.

On whose behalf he was coming, Danzo's or Orochimaru's?

Kabuto's expression had morphed to one of confusion when she didn't make a move to take the pen. She mentally kicked herself and returned his smile. _Calm down, he hasn't done anything. He can't hurt me with Lee here. Whatever he wants, I can play the seven-year-old card to get out of it_. Her fingers trembled slightly as she reached for it and she quickly put her hand back in her pocket. "Thank you, stranger-san," she replied sweetly.

Lee shot her a look, wondering why she was suddenly so polite.

"No problem." She started walking away. "Actually, your surname is Momoru, right? I have orders from the Hokage to take you to a meeting."

_Like hell_.

"Really?" Lee was bouncing. "The Hokage? That's so cool, Aoi-chan!"

Bullshit. The Hokage would send one of his Chunin runners like last time, not a Root agent to get her. But she wasn't supposed to know who Kabuto was and it was impossible, even for a seven-year-old, to ignore the Hokage's summons. She could pretend to be sick - no, Kabuto was a med-nin and he'd just offer to heal her.

_Stall_. "What does Hokage-sama want?" _Think of something._

Kabuto smiled. "I'm afraid I can't tell you that. Let's go?" He offered her his hand.

She couldn't refuse. She had no valid excuse - and she couldn't outrun or fight Kabuto. Her heart was pounding with fear as she automatically reached for his hand, her mind whirring to find a reason, any reason, not to. But there was no way out -

Her last thought before being lifted in a whirlwind of shunshin hit a second too late.

_Hadn't Orochimaru possessed the body of a pale, black-haired girl at some point?_

_Well, fuck._


	6. Calm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [calm: 1. Steadiness of mind under stress. 2. Not showing or feeling nervousness, anger, or other strong emotions.]

The Body Flicker felt like being compressed in a particularly tight space while simultaneously having her lungs sucked out. Aoi most decidedly promised herself not to let it happen again.

If she lived for long enough for it to be an issue, anyway.

She was about to fall but Kabuto helpfully held her up, preventing her knees from hitting the floor. Once the momentary disorientation cleared, she looked up to find Danzo staring at her through a hard grey eye. From her perspective, he seemed pretty big, and his black cloak did make him kind of intimidating.

She would never have thought she'd be relieved to see him, but she was, so much that her knees weakened and she almost fell again. Not Orochimaru. She wouldn't get her soul eaten by her own father just yet.

_No, instead I'll be forced into working for the lunatic who fancies himself rightful dictator of Konoha. Probably end up killing whichever poor kid I happen to train with, too._

Well, it _was_ slightly better. She did survive in the second scenario.

"Hello, Aoi-san."

"Hi."

Kabuto hit her upside the head and sent her sprawling forwards. "Address Danzo-sama respectfully."

"That was not needed, Kabuto. She has no way of knowing who I am."

 _Damn right_. She picked herself up and glared at Kabuto for a moment, rubbing the tender spot where he'd hit her. She'd only met Danzo once before and he hadn't been properly introduced, how did he think she knew how to address him?

"I'm one of the Elders of Konoha, Aoi-san. I'm going to supervise your training from now on."

"Why? Danzo-sama," she added hastily at Kabuto's menacing shift behind her. She'd never understand the deal with the suffixes. There was no reason to be so anal.

"The Hokage thinks you're wasting your talent at the Academy and has decided you need private instruction. From now on, you'll live here. As long as you do as you're told you'll be fine." He actually smiled at her. "Don't worry, I'll take care of you."

Her stomach dropped. Danzo smiling in a grandfatherly way was disturbing and ominous, but she was more worried about what he'd said. The Hokage had just handed her over to him? But... He was supposed to protect her! Didn't he care about what happened to his student's daughter? Of course, Danzo could be lying, but that didn't make much sense. The Hokage would be quick to draw conclusions if she suddenly stopped attending Academy classes without his permission.

The possibility that the old man had really allowed this left her almost winded. She'd honestly thought she was safe. It was hard to believe she'd misjudged him so badly. She'd been _relying_ on him.

 _Really, I shouldn't be surprised, given what happened the last time I relied on anyone other than myself._ The thought was bitter.

And now she was in what seemed like a Root base.

She looked around. They were in a small empty room, with a tatami mat and no furniture or windows. The air tasted stale and heavy, which suggested they were underground. There was a single plain door on one side of the room, and Kabuto was standing in front of it, blocking the exit.

His presence was redundant, since there really was no way she could get out of the situation at this point. Without the Hokage's protection, she was at the mercy of any adult. She'd been trapped the second he'd stopped backing her.

Downplaying her abilities at the Academy had clearly been a mistake. She wondered if she should have tried to stand out instead, to try to make herself seem like she could be more useful. If she'd tried to become a moderately powerful piece, perhaps he'd have been less ready to give her away. Though that would have attracted attention and attention was the one thing Aoi had been avoiding for the majority of her second life. "What about my friends?"

"Depending on how seriously you take your training, you'll be allowed to see them."

She stared at him levelly. _Yeah, right. There's no way he's letting me out of here._

Danzo gestured to Kabuto. "Kabuto will be your instructor for the moment. He's an excellent medic, and given your interest in the subject I think you'll enjoy studying under him." Aoi froze. They knew about her books. They'd been spying on her. Danzo continued as if he hadn't just dropped that bomb into the conversation. "I'll make regular checks on your progress. I expect great things from you, Aoi-san."

Kabuto showed her around the Root base. It was all winding corridors and dead ends, made purposely to confuse intruders. Aoi didn't see a single window, which corroborated her theory about being underground. "What's behind all those doors?"

Kabuto smiled back at her in his nondescript way. No wonder this guy was such a successful infiltrator - he had the most forgettable, bland face, and nothing about him seemed threatening at all. Aoi had been exercising a similar facade for some time but Kabuto had it down to an art form.

"That's where your colleagues live. I wouldn't go in if I were you, most of them have traps set up." He finally rounded a corner and opened one of the doors. "This is your room. Make yourself at home. I'll come get you in an hour."

Colleagues, huh. More like fellow gladiators, trained to fight each other to the death.

The room was a lot like the one she'd first been brought to, except it had a futon and a desk on one corner, where her book collection was neatly stacked up. Aoi sighed and picked out the one on top - _The Chakra Circulatory System_ \- and settled down on the floor.

The letters swam in front of her eyes.

 _I need to get out of here._ She snapped her book shut, got up and opened the door.

And closed it.

_I can't. I don't know the layout of this place and Danzo is the kind of man who doesn't tolerate insubordination. The chances of me escaping as I am now are slim to none. Danzo will tighten the leash when I inevitably fail, making any future attempts even harder. What would I do once outside? I have nowhere else to go._

No, it was better to wait. It wasn't like her life was in immediate danger. She'd stay in Root, play Danzo's game for a while, give him no reason to distrust her. When she left it would be from an advantageous position that would protect her from any sort of retribution. For the moment, staying was the safest course of action.

She glanced back to the book on the floor. It was evening now, and she could feel the fog of sleep lifting from her mind. She sighed, picked it up, and tried to concentrate, but she was too nervous to read. She ended up sprawled on the floor, practicing a meditation exercise which consisted in heating individual parts of the body by will alone.

The first time she'd practiced this exercise, she'd thought the strange warmth she occasionally felt in one of her limbs was wishful thinking. Later she'd recognized it as chakra. She wasn't aware of it if she didn't consciously focus on it, much like one couldn't feel their lungs expand and deflate unless they concentrated. Chakra was the feeling of something very fluid and flexible that she could amass in her abdomen and quickly propel to any part of her body. She'd found that, the more time she spent practicing, the faster that movement could be.

She didn't understand the physical energy and spiritual energy explanation. Oh, of course the theory was simple, but in practice she didn't see how it applied. The chakra she moved was just chakra. Maybe she could ask Kabuto?

She heard her door open and said ninja enter. "Now, Aoi-chan, don't be so impatient. You'll have plenty of chances to practice chakra control."

"What are we doing today?"

He smiled. "Well, I'm evaluating your baseline knowledge first. We're skipping all the literacy tests, but I want to know about your problem-solving and maths skills. Don't try to hold back, I'll know. And from now on, refer to me as Kabuto-senpai." He stared at her expectantly, and when she didn't reply, slapped her across the face.

Aoi was stunned. He'd put his whole weight behind it, and the force of the blow actually whipped her head to the side and made her lose her balance. She automatically brought a hand up to it, but that, too, was slapped away, and she was left staring up at Kabuto in confusion and anger, and suppressing the urge to hit him back. _Who does this brat think he is?_

"Well?"

"Well what?"

Wham! Another smack, stronger this time, which sent her sprawling. She swore she heard her jaw crack, and acute pain shot towards her ear. _Did he just fracture my jaw_? Her hands came away from her mouth, and there was blood. She looked up, tears of incredulity welling in her eyes.

He was still smiling, for all intents and purposes looking like he'd just commented about the nice weather. "I told you to address me as Kabuto-senpai."

"Yes, Kabuto-senpai," she replied dazedly. The action of talking sent a few more acute waves of pain along the bone.

"Great! If you're a good girl, I'll heal your jaw when the session is over."

What the fuck.

She followed behind him through the corridors, reeling from shock and pain and not paying attention to her surroundings. They arrived to another of those square rooms - she was starting to think of them as boxes, or prisons - with a few desks and chairs. There was also some sort of blackboard at the front. Aoi supposed even Root agents had to get an education.

The tests he gave her were meant for Academy graduates - and under normal circumstances, Aoi would have no trouble with maths problems designed for twelve-year-olds. But with a dislocated jaw it was hard to concentrate, and she frequently paused to hold her hand to it, the other one tapping on the desk to distract her from her pain. _Yeah, definitely cracked on the right side._ She prodded it tenderly, suppressing a grimace. _Doesn't seem to be that bad. It would probably heal on its own._

Kabuto's hand shot out and gripped her wrist. Aoi froze, all her muscles tensing at the same time. "You should be working on your test, Aoi-san."

He let go of her wrist. She obediently picked up the pencil and looked at the paper. The first part was short and easy, History, maths and geography. Then he gave her another, much more specific test which was medicine-based. Despite Kabuto's warnings Aoi left blank a few questions and purposefully answered wrong a few others. Her previous experience, combined with the six or so years she'd spent studying from the books in this world, had given her a vast amount of theoretical knowledge, but she couldn't realistically claim she'd learned all she knew in her short life.

It felt like hours when she was done. She was hungry, and thirsty, and above all she either needed her jaw healed or some very potent painkillers.

Kabuto calmly picked up the paper and scanned over it. "Perfect. You don't need classes on any civilian subjects. Your history is spotty, but it'll have to do. Medicine... Hm." He frowned. "Go back to your room."

Aoi didn't move. "Are you deaf? Go back to your room."

"I'd appreciate it if you could heal me, Kabuto-senpai."

He slammed the sheets down on the desk and lifted his hand, a dangerous look in his eye. Aoi cringed.

"Enough, Kabuto," Danzo's voice snapped dryly, and Kabuto immediately relaxed and dropped his hand.

"Yes, Danzo-sama."

Danzo was standing by the doorway, leaning on his cane. His voice was sharp and displeased. "Heal the girl's jaw."

Kabuto grabbed hold of her jaw none too gently and furrowed his brow. When she felt the trickle of foreign chakra, she almost jumped. It was surprisingly similar to her own, except that she wasn't controlling it, and she had to suppress the knee-jerk reaction to lean away from it. She felt her jaw start to numb, and when the numbing disappeared the pain was gone with it.

Kabuto gave her a satisfied smile. "Better, huh?"

She almost spat in his face, managing to hold back only through the thinnest thread of control.

"Come here, Aoi."

She hopped down from the chair and approached the Root leader. Somehow, she wasn't as reluctant to go near him as during their first meeting. She'd rather stand close to Danzo than her sadist thirteen-year-old _instructor_.

She clamped down on that thought before it was finished, and her eyes widened.

_They've already started brainwashing me. Fucking hell. This is all an act so that Danzo can associate himself with positive stimuli. The disappearance of pain, and now... Food?_

He was offering her a sort of protein bar that looked very grey and bland. "You must be hungry, child. Have it." She wouldn't have come near the thing in her old life, but she had the feeling the only food she would get here was when Danzo was around, if he truly meant to associate his presence with meals and healing. So she took it and crunched down on it without protest. It was truly disgusting. She forced herself to chew slowly, making sure her jaw really was healed.

Then Danzo produced a bottle of water. "Drink and rinse your mouth well." He didn't take his eye off her, which was a bit unnerving. "Aoi-san, I'm going to put a seal on your tongue. This seal will prevent you from speaking of what we're teaching you to anyone who doesn't have the same seal as you. It's for your own protection. Do you understand?"

She hesitated before nodding. She knew she would get the Root seal sooner or later, but she never expected it to be _this_ soon - it felt like her very fate would be sealed along with her tongue. Though it wasn't like she really had a choice at this point. If all went well, she'd be able to leave and forget everything that went on in here, and the seal would just be a weird tongue tattoo to keep until the creep died.

"Stick out your tongue."

She cringed when he brought out a needle and a sort of stamp, but it actually didn't hurt at all. She watched through half-lidded eyes as Danzo worked, the glassy way his eye was concentrated in her mouth reminiscent of a dentist. The only indication that he was done was a prickle of foreign chakra. Experimental rolling of her tongue around in her mouth didn't bring forth anything different, save for a bit of swelling on the back of it.

Aoi didn't expect a bit of ink and chakra to make her feel so trapped.

Kabuto took her back to her room after that. There was a second pile of books next to the first one. At the top sat a thin volume with a blue cover labelled Shinobi Handbook. "I'll come back in six hours to start your training. By then, you should have that book memorized. I also recommend you catch some sleep, because tomorrow is going to be brutal." He gave her his fake-ass smile. "Danzo-sama won't be around."

"Yes, Kabuto-senpai."

Aoi watched the door close behind him thoughtfully.

_I'm going to kill you, you sick fuck._


	7. Gifted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Gifted: having exceptional talent or natural ability.]

Aris dutifully filled in the blanks while Mizuki-sensei droned on about the founding of Konoha. He was one of the few - apart from the Uchiha and a girl named Tenten, no one else seemed to be paying attention. In front of him, Neji made a point of looking bored. Though the Hyuga immediately turned serious when jutsu or chakra techniques were mentioned, he had always proclaimed the civvie subjects weren't worth his time.

After a while Aris sighed, shifted strands of dirty blonde hair out of his eyes and put his pen down. His wrist ached. He glanced at Daichi, who was using one of his pencils to pretend he had a mustache. His eyes moved to the next seat along on the row, which was empty. "Hey, Daichi-kun."

"What?"

"Aren't you worried about Aoi-chan?"

Daichi turned his brown eyes on him, grimacing when his pencil fell. "Nah. She's probably just asleep somewhere."

"But," Aris protested, "it's been a week already. And we haven't seen her at the orphanage either."

The other boy shrugged. "Who cares? She's boring."

"But she's our friend." He scrunched his small features into a frown. "I think."

Daichi tried the mustache trick again, this time with two pencils. He also ran his hands through his hair, trying to get it to stand up in spikes for some reason. "Fine. We can ask Mizuki-sensei after class."

A few seats away, Lee, who had overheard the conversation, loudly stated, "I too am worried about my detention partner! I'll go with you!"

Something snapped at the front of the class and everyone's heads turned towards it. Mizuki was holding half a piece of chalk, the other half having fallen to the ground. "Lee, detention," he ground out, jaw clenched and vein throbbing in his forehead. From the front also wafted over Neji's usual, "Loser."

The query about Aoi Momoru's whereabouts was sitting untouched in front of him.

Hiruzen had done many things in his life he wasn't proud of. He'd killed people who'd deserved to live and he'd let escape others who deserved to die. Who _needed_ to die for the world to become a better place.

He'd known Orochimaru was not the exemplary ninja he'd painted him as, he'd known about the man's twisted motives and dangerous obsessions and yet he'd convinced himself that his achievements and talents outweighed his faults. Even when it became painfully clear that Orochimaru was much more monstrous than he'd ever suspected, that he had spiralled so far into darkness he couldn't be saved, Hiruzen was unable to end it. He'd let him escape, no doubt sentencing hundreds more innocents to pain and misery because he wasn't able to stop his own student. _His own student_.

Hashirama-sensei said that love wasn't a weakness. As much as Hiruzen wanted to believe that his love for the village and everyone in it was his greatest strength, he couldn't deny that in Orochimaru's case it had prevented him from doing what needed to be done. He was aware of it. Orochimaru had to die and Hiruzen hadn't been able to kill him because... He took a long drag of his pipe.

That was why men like Danzo existed. Danzo did the things that Hiruzen's misplaced compassion wouldn't allow him to. It was a painful and hated role, without glory, without recognition, but _necessary_. If Danzo didn't exist to ruthlessly, mercilessly make the hard decisions, Konohagakure would have long ago sunk in the shadows.

Danzo loved the village more than the Hokage himself, which was why he was sometimes able to hurt it in order to protect it. It was also why Hiruzen, when he feared his feelings clouded his judgement, trusted Danzo to do the right thing, however cruel it may seem. For the good of the village.

When he looked into the eyes of that child, intelligent and knowing much beyond her years, he couldn't help seeing Orochimaru again, and the shattered and broken bodies hanging from the walls of that laboratory. All dead, he'd been able to tell at first glance. How many? Dozens? A hundred? A hundred bodies of his people weighting on his chest and his conscience like a mountain. A hundred he'd been unable to avenge.

Hiruzen knew that he was emotionally compromised regarding anything that had to do with his student and that included his student's daughter.

He knew little of Danzo's methods, but the shinobi he produced were competent and loyal. He convinced himself that it was the right decision to leave it up to him. The Academy hadn't worked and above all Hiruzen did not want another Orochimaru.

He sighed and wrote down some nonsense about her being adopted by a family who lived in Otafuku Gai.

* * *

 

Kabuto had broken Aoi's wrist earlier that day and refused to heal it even though she'd been perfectly polite and completed the task he'd assigned her without further protest (seeing as the first time resulted in said broken wrist and a second pile of armor to clean). She'd set it with two blunted kunai and strips of her old shirt wrapped around as bandages but it still hurt like a bitch.

_Fuck him. Fuck all these Root nutjobs. Fuck ninjas._

Her body was noticeably thinner than when she'd first arrived and covered in bruises, but the pangs of hunger, bouts of dizziness and occasionally pain when she pressed down on a bruise were negligible in comparison to the acute throbbing in her left wrist.

Now she desperately ruffled through a book titled Anesthetic Remedies, her teeth grit with determination, hoping for a way to numb the pain and manage a few hours of sleep before the sicko came to get her again. Unfortunately the book was more of a herbal than a real med-nin manual, and Aoi was still locked underground and had no herbs at her disposal.

The last page in the book read: _these remedies are only partially effective and should an experienced med-nin be available it is preferable that they numb the area of the wound with chakra._

That was the only suggestion that medical ninjutsu did have techniques to produce effects similar to anesthesia. Healing her wrist directly was out of the question - so far all Aoi had managed was close up tiny scratches and even then she left a pale scar that wouldn't be there had the wound healed naturally.

But just numbing... Numbing should be easier. It would require no finesse or control, all she'd have to do was shock her neurons into stopping their transmission to her brain. She was reluctant to try, though, as if she did something wrong she might permanently lose all motion in her hand. Nerves were delicate.

After another book yielded no further clues, she decided to do it anyway.

The first jab of chakra made her cry out and fold over herself on the floor, where she whimpered pathetically for ten minutes until the pain receded. The second try was much more successful, resulting in an unpleasant sensation of pins and needles from the tip of her fingers to her elbow, much like hitting one's funny bone, but better than the acute, fiery pain of a broken wrist.

She fell asleep in seconds.

 _This technique is dangerous,_ was Aoi's first thought upon waking up and finding her hand swollen to resemble a number of plums stuck together. _Minimizing pain is useful but it makes it impossible to keep track of the extent of the damage._

There was a reason why pain existed, after all. It was a signal to indicate the body had been harmed and prevent any activity to harm it further. Aoi had apparently spent a portion of the night (or day; she wasn't sure anymore) sleeping on her anesthetized hand without noticing and making the swelling worse.

 _Using this I could potentially cut off my own arm without feeling a thing_ , she mused. _I need to refine this, mitigate it and adjust it to a smaller area._

Kabuto opened the door to find a very serious Aoi sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring at a badly swollen wrist that most decidedly needed urgent medical attention. She didn't look as weary and sleep-deprived as he'd imagined, but that injury surely hurt. He smiled. "Good morning, Aoi-san."

"Morning, senpai." Her eyes trailed lazily to him. "Would you be so kind as to heal my wrist now?" Her tone was perfectly bland and devoid of emotion, as if his answer didn't matter one way or another. His smile widened. He walked over and kneeled next to her without a word and took her hand in a gesture that would have seemed tender had it come from anyone else.

It took him less than two minutes to reduce the swelling, repair torn tendons and align broken bones so they could heal properly. Aoi watched him with her usual intensity while he worked, yellow eyes sharp and attentive. "You'll still feel pain for a couple of days. Bones are quite hard to heal, and as you know the wrist is comprised of many of them. But after that you should be fine."

"What are we doing today?"

"Chakra control," was the short answer.

Aoi had been building a mental map over the week she'd spent in the Root base - at least, she assumed it was close to a week. The corridors Kabuto took her through this time were familiar and she probably could have found her way back on her own. So far, she hadn't seen any other living being though she'd often felt like she was being watched and sometimes when she turned she caught movement out of the corner of her eye.

They arrived to another of the cube-rooms. "Medical ninjutsu requires flawless chakra control," he explained. "And a bit more knowledge than the standard most ninja are familiar with. Chakra is comprised of physical energy and spiritual energy, right?" Aoi nodded obediently. Oh, goody. A talking lesson. They were her favorite, because Kabuto had little excuse to hurt her as she usually knew the answers to his unreasonably convoluted questions. She also found Kabuto's tick of pushing up his glasses after each sentence funny.

"For medic-nins there is another way of classifying it. Raw and refined chakra. Raw chakra is nearly synonymous with physical energy. It's produced by every living cell of the body. It moves passively inwards, from the cells to the chakra coils in the stomach. There, it can be voluntarily refined by the user, by mixing it with spiritual energy, and redistributed to the rest of the body for strengthening or pooled and expelled for ninjutsu and genjutsu."

"So it's like tree sap."

He slapped her, but Aoi saw it coming and didn't startle. "Don't interrupt me. When most ninja speak of chakra they refer to refined chakra. That is the one that they voluntarily manipulate. What they don't know is that raw chakra can be controlled too, though it's harder. It cannot be used for ninjutsu or genjutsu but being a direct product of the activity of cells it can be used to strengthen and stimulate their metabolism. It's even more effective than refined chakra when used in taijutsu."

 _That's what Lee does,_ Aoi understood suddenly. _Will do,_ she corrected herself. _For some reason he can't control refined chakra but that's almost an advantage rather than a disadvantage where taijutsu is concerned._

"All living beings possess raw chakra but only a few can refine it. That's one of the things that distinguishes summons from normal animals but we don't care about that." He smiled. "The thing is, raw chakra also has a signature which is specific to every individual; this is why we're able to recognize people we know well from just their chakra. Chakra with a different signature from the individual's usually results in a rejective reaction if it enters the body."

Aoi listened patiently. Chakra had its own sort of antigen, then, like every cell in an individual had a specific molecule that ensured the immune system could accept it, and act only against cells that possessed a different or damaged antigen.

"It's the reason why medical ninjutsu, which inserts chakra in the patient's body, must not possess any physical energy at all. It must be completely blocked out so only spiritual energy remains."

"But if I were to try to heal myself, I wouldn't need to siphon out physical energy, since my body won't reject my own chakra signature," Aoi reasoned.

Kabuto seemed too surprised to point out that she'd interrupted again. "Yes."

He got himself together and clapped his hands once, ending the long explanation. "Walk up the wall for me, please. Direct chakra to your feet and try to get them to stick." Aoi quickly found out that walking was different from crawling. Not only was she attached to the wall by a smaller surface area, but she also had to distribute chakra evenly through the rest of the body to counteract the pull of gravity. Still, she managed it with ease.

She stared at him, face blank, while she stood perpendicular to the wall, her expression almost saying, _tell me something I don't know._

Kabuto frowned, then told her to come down and rummaged in his pocket. He produced a small white stone with a metal-like shine to it. "This is a Yin chakra stone. It reacts to chakra with a physical composition by vibrating and shattering. Try to infuse it with spiritual chakra only. If you succeed, it shouldn't break."

Aoi weighted up the stone in her right hand. Shrugging, she channelled the tiniest amount of chakra into it, then watched in mild fascination as the stone broke into two neat halves, which started pulling closer to the other until they stuck together again and the fissure disappeared. _It's like mercury, only solid. Maybe some kind of magnet._

Kabuto was about to say something when the door opened, and Danzo stepped in. "Good morning, Kabuto-san, Aoi-san. How's the training going?"

_Oh, thank God. I'm starving._


	8. Patient

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Patient: able to accept or tolerate delays, problems or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious.]

One of the advantages of being a med-nin was that one was able to control exactly the amount of damage one inflicted to a target. Med-nins could maximize the intensity of pain inflicted while avoiding permanent injuries, and they could do it as many times as they wanted by healing and inflicting again. Which was why Kabuto was one of Danzo's favorite instructors.

It had taken an unusually long amount of time to break Aoi Momoru. Normally, children of that age were much easier - after two weeks or so of mental and physical abuse, exhaustion, food deprivation and loneliness they were forced to shut out their emotions nearly completely and follow orders without hesitation. Loyalty to Danzo became their religion. The initial phase of the Root program was designed to instill total obedience and erase identity, creating an unconditional follower which could be shaped into a soldier in the following years of training.

After two months Kabuto still wasn't sure where he was at with Aoi. Most of the time she was meek, blank and obedient, as she should be. But there were instances in which her eyes shifted away from him in an almost dismissive way, or times when she was unable to help herself from making what could be mistaken for a small challenging gesture. Kabuto didn't know if he was imagining it because when he looked twice she had the indifferent expression on her face again and answered whatever order he gave her with the same bland, "Yes, Kabuto-senpai."

But Danzo was growing impatient and after an interview with her, the Root leader deemed her ready to move to the next phase of the program. She was no longer only Kabuto's responsibility. He still taught her medical ninjutsu, but she'd started being taught proper ninja skills with the other children. The physical abuse of the first phase was toned down and they weren't denied food and rest when they needed it - though insubordination still warranted harsh punishments. Privileges were also given if one of the children performed exceptionally well.

There were only five at the moment, including Aoi, and only one of them was of the same age as her, the others being at least two or three years older. It didn't matter, because she caught up to their general level in just over a month.

Kabuto knew even he hadn't shown such rapid progress and it irked him.

Root being a division primarily focused on infiltration, the first techniques they were taught slightly differed from what they'd have learnt at the Academy. How to conceal their chakra signature, how to use their age to gain information and signs to distinguish whether someone was being honest. The Transformation technique. "It's very hard to hide one's chakra while performing a jutsu. Most chunin-level ninja and above will be able to tell that something's off, especially if you transform into somebody they're familiar with. However, it's very useful for fooling civilians and hiding in crowds." Kabuto pushed up his glasses. "Well, go ahead. Transform into an unassuming civilian."

Most of them failed. It was understandable, since it was the first time they attempted the technique. Either they forgot bits of the transformation, or the jutsu flickered, superimposing both images, or the result was humanoid in shape but lacked detail.

Aoi Momoru's transformation was perfect. Kabuto found himself looking up at a young woman with straight, limp brown hair, green eyes and a slightly larger-than-average nose. She wore strange clothes, tighter than he was used to with a leather handbag hanging from one shoulder. She smirked down at him for a second before her expression turned back to its usual blankness.

The transformation was older than him by a few years. She was also taller than him. He didn't like it.

"Well, everyone, keep practicing. Aoi-san, why don't you start working on turning into inanimate objects?" A pity he couldn't hit her as often anymore. Instead, he gave her a freezing smile and walked to a corner to watch. By the end of the session, the other small kid, the one who was drawing all the time, was the only one who'd managed a passable human transformation apart from her.

He took his revenge in the next specialized medical ninjutsu session. He was supposed to open up a corpse in front of her for the first time - and he knew from experience that, depending on how the demonstrator handled it, it could be quite traumatizing. But her reaction was woefully underwhelmed. She leaned over the torn open ribcage, crushed organs and dark blood and bits of bone mixed into one gory mess, and made a contemplative sound. "If you drain out the blood and replace it with a fixing agent before opening it up, it's less messy."

Kabuto pushed up his glasses. Bits of intestine hung from his arm and the gesture accidentally smeared blood on his clothes. "Whatever."

* * *

 

Aoi looked at Sai (though she knew that wasn't his name now) and then at the older Root member who'd been teaching them that day. She had a bear mask with four holes for the eyes instead of two. Aoi didn't want to think about the reason for it. "Well? Get ready."

Sai blinked and slid into a pose which looked suspiciously like a fighting stance. This was the first time Aoi had any kind of taijutsu training so, not knowing quite what to do, she just mimicked him. At the Academy they'd still been playing ball games and doing conditioning drills when she left, and for most of it she'd just found a quiet corner in the shade to nap. She didn't see the use of starting physical training so early, when their bodies still had to develop.

Sai had been fairly easy to recognize. He was the only kid around her age and the only one whose skin was paler than hers. He didn't talk much, and she'd never seen him without his sketchpad nearby. His eyes were wider than they'd be when he was older, making him look decptively innocent. Really, even in a fighting stance he wasn't very threatening, with his chubby cheeks and small nose and -

"Begin!"

Aoi blinked at the ground her face was pressed against, having entirely missed whatever had put it there. Her arm was pinned painfully against her back and one of her legs was trapped underneath something heavy. As she blinked again something hit her in the back of the head and she saw stars.

"Enough," the Root agent said, and immediately whatever was holding her in place disappeared.

Aoi picked herself up, disoriented. Sai was standing a few meters away from her, back in his stance, as if he hadn't just crushed her into the ground like a worm. "Begin!"

This time she felt her ribs crack and she was slammed against one of the walls of the room, all her air leaving her lungs in a whoosh. "Girl, we're going to keep doing this until you land a good hit on him." For a moment of panic Aoi was unable to get any air in her lungs again until it finally flowed, and she bent over, gasping. _Yup, cracked rib. Fucking Sai._

He came at her again. She didn't have time to do more than put her arms in front of her face as he methodically beat her down, punching and kicking and snapping every part of her that wasn't covered by her arms. There was more breaking and blood. Sai hit much harder than she'd expected, and he knew how to snap joints and target all the weaker areas. At some point Aoi lost track of it and simply curled up into a ball, waiting for it to be over.

Finally, Sai stopped and turned away. It felt like the blows had been raining down for an eternity, though it probably wasn't more than a dozen seconds. "I've broken or dislocated her arms and legs. I doubt she'll be able to hit me now."

Aoi made a sound. She was in so much pain she didn't even know what she'd meant to say.

Sai looked back and added, "Should I kill her?"

The question suddenly jostled her awake, _kill me?_ Fear pushed the pain back like a tidal wave. She sent numbing chakra crashing all over her body, then straightened one leg, kicking Sai's foot from under him. As he fell back towards her, already turning his head, she punched him across the face.

Her arm was so numb she didn't even feel the impact. It was like using a stick. She wasn't sure how hard she'd hit him but it must have been fairly hard, because Sai's head snapped to the side and he fell on her with an 'ooomph', before quickly rolling away.

The masked woman grabbed Sai's arm as he got up. "Alright, you both did well. Boy, go call Kabuto."

After shooting her an indifferent look, he scampered off.

Aoi was obscenely proud of having managed a punch on an eight-year-old, telling herself that Sai could probably beat any normal adult to a pulp even at eight. Bear woman didn't offer any further words of praise.

She maintained the numbing jutsu until Kabuto arrived. "Got yourself in quite a mess, huh?" he commented, in a suspiciously happy note, before leaning down and setting to work.

She concentrated, feeling how his foreign chakra wrapped around her cracked ribs and burst vessels and started threading them back together. "Kabuto-senpai."

"Yes?"

She licked her lips, sighing softly as her dislocated shoulder was eased back into place. "I read that the mystical palm technique works by stimulating the patient's cells to divide, grow and regenerate. But the Yin chakra med-nin use has no physical substance so it shouldn't be able to do that. So how does it work?"

Kabuto smiled. Aoi had long ago worked out how to play Kabuto. Nearly all his actions were centered around proving his superiority, whether that was physically or by showing off his superior medical knowledge. Kabuto enjoyed listening to the sound of his own voice and wouldn't object to teaching something as long as she didn't interrupt him. "What you do is mix the Yin chakra with the raw chakra passively produced by the patient's body, making a pseudo-refined chakra which you then re-inject in the damaged organ or tissue, forcing it to regenerate." He paused to push up his glasses, then started working on her other arm. "Though I wouldn't try it if I were you, it requires chakra control a level above what you can currently manage. There's a precursor technique called the Diagnostic palm which merely uses the Yin chakra to wrap around organs and assess damage. When you manage to not break the stone, you can try that."

Aoi thought for some time. Kabuto had finished and was about to walk out the door when she spoke. "But if I were healing myself, there would be no need to mix the Yin chakra in my hand with the raw chakra in the affected area. I could just make refined chakra the normal way, through the coils, and direct it into the affected area internally without use of my hands or anything. After all, my body won't reject my own physical chakra and it's much easier that way."

Kabuto paused at the door. "Ah, maybe," he said, and walked out.

 _Maybe, my ass,_ Aoi thought later, in her room. She was smiling up at the no-longer cut on her thumb, which she'd healed using normal refined chakra without any difficulty. There was no scar, either. _He's just never thought of it before._

It then occurred to her that later, Kabuto would fight Tsunade and Naruto using a jutsu that involved rapidly healing any area of his body that was damaged.

_Huh. I didn't just give him the idea for it, did I?_

Then she practiced moving around her chakra in her body, warming up various areas from her third toe to her left eyebrow. After a while she sat up and stared hard at the small white stone on the floor. She picked it up and injected a tiny bit of chakra into it.

Creating purely Yin chakra was a strange thing to do. You still had to pool the raw physical chakra in the coils but not let any of it into the chakra you sent back outwards. The stone's surface cracked at the top, but didn't break, and in a few seconds it was smooth again. _Good enough._

She pocketed the stone, sent more chakra to her now empty hand, looked at it, breathed in, and placed it over her leg. If this went wrong the limbs were safer than the torso. Yin chakra had no physical substance and in theory couldn't damage her body, but it was still safer not to place it over a major tenketsu just in case.

The Diagnostic Palm was surprisingly easy. She could feel the place where skin met a layer of conjunctive tissue and then thick muscle. As she sent the chakra deeper she felt the stranger consistency of bone, then bone marrow. She also came across the occasional major nerve or blood vessel and...

 _It's exactly like tree sap. The cells making up the chakra system are dead._ She supposed it made sense, so that the chakra flow wasn't disrupted by the cells it travelled through, but still, it was exciting to learn that her body had somehow adopted a circulatory system uncannily similar to that of plants.

Aoi sighed and lay back down, thinking back to the fight with Sai. He was really good. She hadn't even been able to tell what he hit her with. The reality of the situation dawned on her again, that she was training to become a ninja and this was Root and at some point she'd be part of Danzo's coup to overthrow the Hokage.

* * *

 

Days passed. Maybe weeks. Maybe months. Sai still beat her up on a weekly basis but at least she had the numbing jutsu and the self-healing one to get through it. She let Kabuto heal her most of the time still, because she didn't want to give all her cards away yet and as much as she hated to admit it he was still a better medic than her. She might have had more in-depth knowledge, especially on things at the molecular level, but he had years of chakra-healing experience to draw on.

Her escape plan was still inapplicable.

She was waiting for the right moment. She was relatively safe now, but Root was not a nice place to be in and she still fully intended to leave it. She hoped the Hokage wouldn't let Danzo have her forever, but if he had forgotten about her she knew she'd have to take matters into her own hands. Unfortunately, information gathering was proving to be ridiculously difficult since everyone she came into contact with was stoic and tight-lipped and disappeared as soon as their business was done.

Someone knocked at her door. "Come in," she said without moving from her bed.

"I'd rather you came out here, Yellow-san," Sai's voice answered politely.

He was, perhaps, the only person who she could talk to on a more or less normal level. Him and one of the older children they trained with that called himself Shin. They knew more about the organization than she did and weren't so reluctant to share their knowledge. Shin in particular behaved in a surprisingly relaxed and friendly manner when they were alone, though the emotionless mask slipped on as soon as an agent passed nearby.

Aoi had been thinking on how to approach the topic of a breakout with him for a while. She had the feeling Shin was just as restless as she was, but didn't want to risk it until she knew more about him. If he tattled on her, it would be a disaster. Not to mention he seemed to have a soft spot for Sai and Sai shared none of his animosity towards Root. Sai was the perfect little soldier.

She pushed her thoughts aside and got up to open the door.

Sai was standing in the corridor, rocking back and forth on his heels, looking adorable with his short black hair and big eyes and not at all like a trained killer. "What do you want?"

"Danzo-sama said to bring you. We have a mission."

Aoi stared at him incredulously for a second. She'd only been here for a few months... How many months exactly? Anyway, it was way too short a time to already be assigned a mission. Sai seemed to sense her shock. "Don't worry, I've already been on one, and Danzo-sama said this one would be easier."

"I'm going with you?" she blurted, unable to help herself.

He nodded. Aoi sighed and resignedly followed through the corridors.

_Great. Awesome. Hopefully it's outside this claustrophobic base and I'll be able to sneak some food. Hopefully it'll be a stupid D-rank about weeding fields or cleaning up rubbish. Hey, maybe I'll see the Hokage and ask him to get me out of here._

But no, of course it was an assassination mission. This was Root, after all.


	9. Innocent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [innocent: 1. Not guilty of a crime. 2. Not responsible for or directly involved in an event yet suffering its consequences.]

Aoi had considered just taking off towards the Hokage's office and demanding to be rescued from Root the second she stepped outside. She might have made it, too, as Sai would follow the rulebook like a good little soldier and choose to complete the mission over anything else, including impeding her escape.

Except that this was quite obviously a test from Danzo. They were most likely being shadowed by another agent, not alone in their mission like they'd been told. The chances of a successful escape were slim and between impossible freedom and survival, Aoi would rather choose survival. If she performed flawlessly she'd gain Danzo's trust once and for all and better opportunities would arise.

In this case there was a troublesome additional variable, which was that her continued survival required she participate in the cessation of someone else's existence.

People died, Aoi could tell you all about that. If it wasn't because their friends stabbed them in the back, it was by a thousand other means, natural or no, creatively invented by ninja or no. The point was that they died, and in the grand scheme of things and in what concerned Aoi personally how exactly that occurred wasn't relevant.

Her old self that had gotten into med school had died too.

So after a moment she discarded it as a non-issue. Even if this world wasn't a hallucination, she had learnt the lesson and decided eight years ago that her own life had significant priority over anyone else's.

She was finally outside, feeling the wind on her face and the earth crunch under her feet and the fresh air in her lungs, after being trapped underground for the better part of a year, and yet Aoi didn't run.

She would complete the mission and go back to Root. Depending on the new situation that arose, she could follow the original plan and approach Shin once she had a better grasp on the boy. In any case she was positive a good performance would grant her more freedom and more opportunities to leave.

It wasn't the right moment yet. But it would be, soon.

* * *

 

When you spotted two kids by the roadside selling lemonade something tugged at your heart. Particularly if they were skeleton-thin and extremely pale and with shadows under their eyes. Particularly if they were dressed in orphan-rags. Particularly if you had kids their own age waiting for you at home, and particularly if the little girl looked up at you with eyes the most breathtaking shade of golden you'd ever seen.

Nao, who was your bodyguard, placed a hand on your sleeve as soon as you automatically switched directions towards them. "It might not be a good idea."

And of course you rolled your eyes because he'd been going on about poisoning attempts since you first started traveling three months ago. Mot of the time he insisted on preparing food himself and only allowed buying food outside from very specific places. It was overly paranoid and there was just no way two little kids selling lemonade by the roadside were trying to poison you. At worst they wanted to pick your pockets, and maybe you'd let them, because they just looked way too thin. "Look, there's no way these are Sand-nin. I put up with you while we were in Wind country but we crossed the Fire border two days ago. Besides, I'm thirsty."

You swatted his hand aside and smiled to the girl, who looked a bit older than the boy. "Hello, how much for one cup?"

"Nin' hundred Ryo." Her face was oddly serious.

Yup, they wanted to bleed you dry. "It seems a bit much. How about one hundred?" You held up one finger to demonstrate.

She thought about it. "No. One thousand."

That made you laugh. "It's the first time I try to bargain and a price goes _up_." You turned to look at Nao. "That ever happen to you?"

He gave you his stern, boring ninja face. You ignored him and turned back to the kids, smiling. "Alright, little lady, I'll give you one thousand."

She nodded and took the money you gave her, and she didn't count it, maybe, you thought sadly, because she didn't know how to count. The boy poured your lemonade in one of their paper cups and gave it to you. But then Nao, that prickly little bastard, stopped you from drinking it by placing a hand on your arm again. "How did you make it?" He asked in his Jonin voice, letting out a small wave of what you'd learned was termed Killing Intent.

The kids visibly flinched, and you wanted to hit him upside the head. You didn't in the end, because even though you'd been traveling with him for three months he was still a ninja who could snap your neck in half a second. Not that he would, since you were paying him to prevent exactly that from happening, but still.

The little boy pointed ahead, towards a wild grass field and a bit further away a few trees. "We found some lemon trees."

Nao's eyes narrowed. "Why are you setting up a lemonade stand in the middle of nowhere anyway?"

The kids looked too scared to answer. Finally the girl bit her lip and said, in a trembling voice, "'Snot the middle of nowhere. 'S a road."

Silence.

Now you were convinced Nao was just being stupid. You pried his hand away again and raised the cup to your lips.

But you'd just wet your lips in the liquid when his hand lashed out again, knocking the cup out of your hands. It spilled on the floor, and you turned on him, angry. That was too far. "Kid," you said, clearly and distinctly (you weren't a renowned diplomat for nothing), "pour me another cup. I'll pay again." You looked Nao in the eye and dared him to make a single move.

He looked back calmly. "Sara-sama, I won't let you drink that lemonade."

You took the new cup the kid was holding up and you threw it at _him_.

Nao, being a ninja, of course managed to dodge it. The liquid drew an arc through the air and the cup landed upside-down on the earthy road. Nao appeared behind you, and you could hear the hiss in his voice. "We're leaving." He grabbed your arm and unceremoniously pulled you away from the scene, paying no heed to your protests and threats to halve his pay if he didn't release you right this second.

"Who do you think you are, you brutish man! I order you to let me go!" Then you started screaming "Help! He's abducting me!" But the countryside was empty and only the two kids with the stand could hear you.

This had happened before, a hundred times, and you knew that you'd end up forgiving him, but at the moment you were extremely thirsty and furious.

* * *

 

Sai calmly wiped his fingers on the special towels Kabuto had given them while Aoi sighed, put her hand in a plastic bag and picked up the paper cups on the floor.

Contrary to what the Jounin from Kumo had suspected, the lemonade wasn't poisoned. Well, it wasn't the only thing that was poisoned. The cups were too.

So the poison was now spread on the lady's lips. All she'd have to do was lick them because they were too dry or something and it would be done. "Do you think it will be enough?"

Sai had gotten out a kunai pouch and was strapping it onto his leg. "Possibly." Without a word he started stalking in the direction their target and her bodyguard had just left.

"What are you doing?"

"We must confirm the death of the target," he replied blandly.

Aoi did not want to go anywhere near that Jounin but they were probably still being watched and assessed. So she followed him, making sure her chakra signature was properly masked.

It was one of the key skills needed in infiltration and therefore the first thing Root initiates were taught. Depending on the situation, Aoi could mask her signature as that of a civilian, an animal, or even blend it in among the currents of natural chakra in the air to make it seem like there was no one there at all. It wasn't an unusual ability in ninja, though it was definitely very rare in ninja their age, and only infiltration specialists ever managed to truly master the skill. The main drawback was that, while one was masking their chakra, it was incredibly difficult to perform a jutsu at the same time.

The agent who taught them was an powerful close-range sensor who could tell where exactly his opponents were and what they were doing even with his eyes closed and wearing earplugs. His favorite exercise consisted in throwing kunai at his students until they learned to mask well enough that he wasn't able to distinguish them from their surroundings anymore.

Needless to say, it had been a very painful lesson to learn.

It still didn't mean Aoi was eager to approach the Jonin. But Sai strode on and she had little choice in the matter.

They reached the edge of the forest where the path started twisting around shrubs and tree roots and Sai silently started crawling up a trunk, Aoi following close behind. They moved slowly and stealthily, the winding branches between trees acting as their pathways, until they spotted their targets up ahead, walking side-by-side.

Either they came too close or their control slipped or perhaps the bodyguard was just that good, because he abruptly stopped walking and glanced back. "Nao?" The target inquired. Aoi held her breath.

He shook his head and continued walking, much to the two children's relief.

A few moments later the woman stumbled. The Jounin caught her before she could fall. "Sara. What hurts?"

"My-my throat," the woman choked out before slumping over.

The Jounin swore and lay her on the ground.

Aoi made some quick hand signals to Sai. Mission over. Leave.

Wait, he replied. Medic.

And indeed, the bodyguard was running his hand over the woman's throat in the familiar motions of the Diagnostic Palm. A long string of swear words ran through Aoi's mind. It was just her luck that the bodyguard knew medical fucking jutsu. She wasn't aware of any techniques to deal with poison, Kabuto hadn't taught her any of that yet, but if he managed to save her...

If he managed to save her, they would have to abort the mission. With the Jounin's guard up attempting to poison the target again would be suicide and they couldn't be expected to engage him in battle.

That meant they would fail the mission, and while it probably wouldn't earn her Danzo's trust, Aoi wasn't wholly averse to the idea.

But apparently it was not to be; the Jounin wasn't able to stop the inevitable. A few seconds later he shouted "No. No!" Tension radiated from him, terribly thick. "Shit. Come on, come on." The civilian's weak chakra sputtered and disappeared, and he bowed his head, his hands fisting uselessly at his sides. "Sara..."

Then he slowly stood and turned around, and Aoi was hit with such an intense wave of Killing Intent that it rooted her in place.

Fortunately Danzo had given them emergency teleport scrolls to an entrance to the Root base. She didn't hesitate in whipping it out and using it.

* * *

 

Hiruzen was a calm man. He didn't lose his temper often. Many people would testify that the Hokage was in fact the most patient person in all of Konoha. Some fools saw this as a weakness, but he was proud of choosing negotiation over confrontation and peace over war.

There was a proverb somewhere, about three things to be feared most in the world. The anger of a gentle man was one of them. It made sense, in a way, as only something truly terrible could arise when that dam of patience was broken. And when Hiruzen got truly angry, it was white-hot and ice-cold and someone ended up dead, and usually more than one person.

Right now he was having a very, very hard time not gouging out the remaining eye of the man standing in front of him. His killing intent invaded the room, suffocating and strangling, a dark aura of pure blood thirst that would have knocked normal people unconscious and dropped any of his Jounin to his knees.

Danzo looked a bit pale but remained standing.

"You," Hiruzen hissed, his voice sharper than a needle in the throat, "have betrayed this village."

"It was necessary-"

"No."

It was just a single word, and yet Danzo had never heard anything more deadly. "I have not betrayed the village. I've acted to protect it. You couldn't-"

"You'll disband Root immediately," the Hokage continued, his voice icy. "My ANBU will escort you to your base to make sure you do, and then to your home, where they will guard you while I arrange the paperwork to have you executed. That is. An order. Speak one more word and I might skip the paperwork and kill you myself." Said ANBU had been locked out of the office before Danzo came in, and silencing seals had been put up, because this matter could not be overheard by anyone, even mute masks.

Danzo straightened. "One day you will see, Hiruzen, that I have done you a favor."

"Get _out_."

Danzo left.

Hiruzen leaned heavily on his desk, gripping his scarce hair with his other hand. The Hokage hat was abandoned on a table in one corner of the room, and he didn't look at it.

A crushing wave of sadness flushed away the white rage and left him empty. Too much. It was too much. More than two hundred people dead, and Hiruzen had only himself and Danzo to blame, and tonight he'd pass the order to execute his closest friend for treason.

He couldn't believe Danzo had gone to such extremes. He was a jealous man, yes, paranoid and harsh, yes, but he _was supposed to protect the village_ , not obliterate one of its founding Clans. Hiruzen had forgiven Danzo before, when the attempt had been on his own person, but he could not forgive this - no, the Uchiha were Konoha's citizens regardless of what they'd been planning and Danzo had massacred _his people,_ creating more casualties than any other enemy village in the Third Shinobi War.

On top of it all the Hokage had to prevent the other clans from learning about it at all costs, because if they did...

He couldn't do it, he realized.

They weren't stupid; Shikaku Nara would piece together what had happened the second Danzo's head hit the ground. Hiruzen couldn't carry out justice on Danzo, because that would mean everyone knowing the reason for the genocide wasn't a teenager's whim, but it had been done on _orders_ from Konoha's governing body because they were afraid of the Uchiha's power.

And if that happened, the clans would uprise. Civil war.

He slowly walked around his desk and sat down on his chair, feeling old. The Hat stared back at him from across the room, and Hiruzen put his head in his hands and cried for the first time in years.

* * *

 

Returning to the Root base without having attempted an escape was almost physically painful but Aoi convinced herself she had no other choice. The shadows swallowed her up as they descended back underground from the secret entrance beyond Konoha's gates.

 _Well, at least I know one of the entrances now._ It was a small reassurance, but heartening all the same, to be sure that she could find her way out of the maze again if the occasion allowed it.

She was in her room, playing with the chakra stone and making it spin in her palm, when timed knocks at the door interrupted her. She tilted her head to listen. The code said, large practice hall now, so she got up, dusted herself off and opened the door. There was no one there, but Aoi had gotten used to it and just headed where she'd been instructed.

She met Sai and Shin on the way. The older boy was taller, with light hair and a pale complexion, and occasionally let the hint of a smile crack through his poker face. "Do you know what it's about?" he asked. Both Aoi and Sai shook their heads.

As they turned corners and approached the Hall, more Root agents fell into step behind them. When they finally emerged, Aoi was surprised at the number of people already waiting there. Some wore their mission gear, masks included, some were in a more casual attire, but they all formed ranks to fill almost the entire room. "Is this the whole of Root?" she asked, perplexed. Danzo was at the front of the room, flanked by two more agents...

A chill went down her spine. Though they wore the white porcelain masks too, they didn't have the customary midriff jacket. Instead they had arm guards, black clothes and a grey flak jacket.

What were regular ANBU doing here? How had they found the base? And as she squinted, the question turned to _is that spiky grey hair? Well look who decided to join the party._

Then Danzo announced Root was disbanded.

Aoi gaped. Either the people around her had known what he was going to say beforehand or were very good at hiding their surprise, because she seemed to be the only one caught off-guard. Even Shin took it in stride, face blank.

"From here on I release you from your duties as agents of Root," Danzo continued. "The organization no longer exists. The base is to be cleared, and all of you are ordered to return to the regular ninja ranks of Konoha."

He offered no reason. All his agents just nodded and started clearing the room. "Am I missing something here?" she asked Shin while they filed back through the corridors.

"Don't you know? Danzo-sama has given us instructions in case something like this were to happen. We pretend to obey, lay low outside for two weeks, and report back on the fourteenth night at outpost 3B." He spoke in a whisper and staring ahead, so the possible ANBU present wouldn't hear. Sai nodded, confirming it.

Yeah, no. If she was going to get out of here, she was going to make sure she _stayed_ out. She wondered if Shin himself was thinking something along the same lines. "He didn't give me those instructions."

"In that case, you should follow the ones he gave you," Sai replied slowly.

Which were none at all. He must have forgotten, since she was relatively new.

But it meant... She was free.

Aoi started running down the corridor, leaving the boys behind. She stumbled into her room and packed her medical books in a strap bag they'd given her for carrying weapons. She hesitated, then decided to make a quick trip to the storage room and grab a few kunai as well. It still felt like an awkward bread knife every time she picked one up but you never knew when something sharp and pointy would prove useful.

She left the base through a different entrance she hadn't known of, following a group of older agents. They emerged in a back alley behind Konoha's walls. They all immediately veered off in opposite directions, silently agreeing to pretend they didn't know each other for fourteen days.

Aoi didn't move for a while, taking in the ratty alley and the strip of blue sky above her head.

"Aoi-san?" an incredulous voice called, and Aoi snapped her eyes to the entrance of the alleyway where a silhouette in traditional Chinese clothing had stopped to stare.

Just like that, Root was over.


	10. Independent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [independent: 1. Free from outside control; not subject to another's authority. 2. Capable of thinking or acting for oneself.]

It had been a year, but Lee hadn't changed much.

Aoi was still taller than him by a small margin, and he still wore his hair in a braid. She waved awkwardly. "Hey."

He wasn't alone. An old woman stood besides him, back hunched and a pair of broken glasses dangling off her nose. Her face was a spiderweb of wrinkles, her hair snowy-white, as were her eyebrows, just as bushy as Lee's. She gave off the air of one of those deep-rooted, ancient trees that had been around since the beginning of the world.

"Wow! How come you're back in Konoha?" he asked, then looked up at the woman nervously. "Grandma, this is Aoi-san, do you remember her? She was my friend... Why did you leave without saying anything?"

He looked uncertain of whether he should be upset or not. Aoi smiled, the expression feeling strangely out of place. "It was rather sudden."

Lee's grandma stared at her for a few seconds, then smiled too, the wrinkles around her eyes deepening. "Lee, I'm tired, so I'll go home. You should stay and catch up with your friend! I'm sure you have many things to tell her after a year apart!" Ah. Despite the gravely voice, she still somehow managed to convey enthusiasm. So the exclamation marks were a family thing.

"Okay, grandma! Be careful!"

Lee's grandma left and the two children looked at each other awkwardly. After a while Aoi sighed and walked over to him. "Should we walk around?" He nodded. It was surreal, to see Lee again, to walk in broad daylight like it was normal. Aoi kept glancing around, waiting for something to happen.

He just smiled and started making his way through the crowd. "I'm so glad to see you again, Aoi-san!"

The streets were full of people. She gauged the time to be about mid-afternoon - just a few hours after her first mission that morning. Lee seemed to be walking with a purpose, weaving around strangers. "Where are we going?"

"To the training grounds! I always go there after class! It's really cool because a lot of ninja are practicing at this time! Do you want to come?"

"Alright," Aoi agreed, since she had nothing better to do. The training grounds were on the other side of the village and she did feel like taking a stroll. The sun on her skin was warm, and the conversations of people around her washed over her in a constant stream of noise. There was color and expression everywhere - banners, panels, clothes, a contrast to the monochromatic grey theme of the Root base and blank animal masks.

Her feet stopped in front of a food stand by themselves. Her stomach made a hungry noise as the smell of meat reached her nostrils. The food at Root had been bland, grey, and scarce. She could feel saliva gathering inside her mouth.

The next time Lee glanced over, Aoi was holding a barbecue stick between her fingers and devouring it hungrily. He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion but didn't ask.

"Are you coming back to the Academy then? You should know, I don't get as many detentions anymore. I've become an average student!" He seemed inordinately proud of the accomplishment.

"That's good," she complimented in between bites.

"So you _are_ coming back? What happened to your adoptive parents?"

So _that_ was the official explanation for her disappearance. Classical adoption into a family who lived in another city. Of course she'd go along with it, the seal prevented her from talking about Root anyway. "I wanted to be a ninja after all, and they let me." They side-stepped an overturned cart and the man yelling loudly on top of it. Aoi chucked the bare barbecue stick in a nearby bin. "What have you been up to, Lee?"

She half listened while he chattered on, his eyes widening adorably at some parts and his hands making overly-enthusiastic gestures which she swayed to avoid. He told her about his progress in the Academy, how he was friends with a girl named Ten Ten, and how Ruko Uchiha hadn't been to class that morning. They finally arrived to the training grounds. Lee crouched under some bushes, and Aoi crouched with him, and they both watched the impressive displays of taijutsu taking place, and at one point a full-on elemental jutsu battle that broke out between two Special Jounin. Lee squealed excitedly every time something interesting happened and hurried to point it out to her.

Aoi sometimes looked up at the sky, watching the clouds drift.

* * *

 

The Hokage stared at the child sitting in front of his desk. The chair looked too big for her, and she was much thinner than when he last saw her. "Are you eating well, Aoi-chan?"

"I am now." There was some resentfulness in her voice, but her face revealed nothing. Her eyes were half-lidded, as if bored or sleepy.

Hiruzen sighed. "I take it you didn't like Danzo as your teacher."

There was a beat of silence. "Not really."

"I'm sorry. That was a mistake. He wasn't the man I thought he was."

She just stared at him. "Yes, well. I don't think he'll give up on me so easily. I won't be angry at you if you let me go back to the Academy and help me when he decides that he wants me back."

Hiruzen wondered what exactly Danzo had put her through. "Can you tell me...?"

She stuck out her tongue, and Hiruzen grimaced. He knew about Danzo's cursed seal, but he'd hoped he didn't use it on mere trainees. "I promise I'll help you, Aoi-chan."

"Really?" She seemed suspicious. _With good reason_ , he reminded himself. "Is there like a jutsu or a contract somewhere that will force you to keep your promise?"

Hiruzen smiled sadly. "No. But you have my word as Hokage."

She thought about it for a while. "I guess that's good enough." She leaned forward on her chair and smiled in an almost predatory manner, and in that moment she looked so much like her father Hiruzen had to blink to make sure he wasn't imagining it. "Oh, and I know the truth about the Uchiha massacre, in case you ever need anyone to discuss it with."

* * *

 

Mizuki held the girl standing at the front of the classroom firmly by the shoulders. "Good morning everyone. This is Aoi Momoru, she used to be in our class last year. She just returned from Otafuku Gai on her own, so please be nice to her."

The class was unusually silent. Some of the children looked at Aoi with curiosity, others with jealousy. The two orphan boys at the back, Daichi and Aris, were openly gaping, while Rock Lee gave her a hesitant thumbs up. Still, no one spoke a word. There was a feeling of dread hanging in the air, as all heads turned to look at Hyuga Neji.

He got up from his chair, making it scrape against the floor, and pointed a finger at her. "She's never going to replace him," he said quietly, before walking out of the room.

* * *

 

She'd told the Hokage she didn't want to go back to the orphanage, so he gave her an apartment in a block inhabited by a majority of Genin and a few Chunin. She was pretty sure she saw Ebisu, the closet-pervert with sunglasses, going into his own apartment a few doors down her corridor when she first arrived.

The apartment was small, and dirty, but one of the walls was a huge glass window that let generous amounts of sunlight in. The first thing she did upon entering was walk over to it and throw it open, feeling the wind gently draft into the room.

"Well, I'll be around tomorrow to make your food," her landlord said. It was part of the arrangement the Hokage had stuck him with and he wasn't too happy about it.

"Don't worry," Aoi replied without turning around, "I can cook on my own."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

The thing about civilians from hidden villages was that they weren't all that bothered about children doing things on their own. They were used to hearing rumors of four-year-olds graduating from the Academy and being thrown into the battlefield, so they didn't bat an eye when an eight-year-old ninja-in-training said they didn't need any looking after whatsoever.

Her sleeping schedule went out the window. In Root there was no choice as to when to go to sleep - they were allowed precious few hours to do it and Aoi wasn't stupid enough to try to stay awake through them. Before that, at the orphanage, she'd been mostly nocturnal, since that was the time when she could study without anyone bothering her.

Now she could do it any time she wanted. The only fixture in her life was an alarm clock set at seven-thirty a.m. so she could get to the Academy on time and her behavior that day depended on how much she'd slept the day before. Sometimes she was wide awake through classes, and when that happened she took a medical book with her to read under her desk, and sometimes her head hit the desk as soon as Mizuki started a lecture.

She never made an effort to fix it. There was an odd sense of freedom in being able to sleep whenever you wanted.

* * *

 

Apparently, they'd gotten started on taijutsu training while she was away.

Mizuki spent an hour going over the first Academy kata and then told them to pair up. The children moved with the ease of familiarity, Aris immediately walking over to Daichi and Lee waving at Tenten.

Aoi had never noticed Tenten before Lee had pointed her out, but the girl seemed nice enough. She was tomboyish and had a mischievous streak - Lee said she liked to make faces at Mizuki while he had his back turned.

Either way, it left two people standing alone. Aoi, who was new, and Neji, who used to pair up with someone who wasn't there anymore.

"So Ruko Uchiha was your partner, huh," she commented as she went to stand in front of him. The majority of girls in the class seemed to only then realize that Neji needed a new partner, and stared at her in jealousy for thinking of it sooner. 

Neji glared at her, then turned towards Mizuki. "I don't want to be paired with her."

Their teacher's lips thinned. "Too bad, because you're going to."

"She's really weak compared to Ruko."

"I don't care." He turned around, addressing the class. "Alright, if someone gets hurt I'll be angry. So no hitting. Tapping only. Off you go."

Neji's lips pulled into a small, cruel smile, and his pupil-less eyes seemed to tighten. As soon as Mizuki started walking towards another pair of students, he shifted his stance from the Academy standard to a lower one, with one hand stretched palm-out and the other held by his hip. His eyes tightened further and small vessels became visible around the corners.

Aoi watched with interest. "You're not going all Gentle Fist on me, are you?"

The first blow glanced her shoulder and Aoi immediately felt the disruption in the flow of chakra going to that arm. After a lurch, it went back to normal.

 _He hasn't learnt how to block tenketsu properly yet._ That didn't mean there was no internal damage to the tendons and muscles from the chakra he'd jammed into the joint. It wasn't nearly as painful as the beatings she got in Root so she didn't try to heal it immediately.

 _It's an interesting style,_ she pondered while he attacked again. _Focused on range and speed. The hands have more priority than any other possible way of striking._ There were very few kicks and no elbows in the Gentle Fist style.

It was obvious he was better than her. He'd been trained in his clan's techniques since he could walk while all she'd done was get miserably beaten up in Root for a year. He even deactivated his Byakugan after a while. "Hmph. You're really weak."

"I guess." She breathed in, holding her palm stretched open in front of her and mirroring his stance. _Alright, here we go._

Neji looked puzzled, then angry. "That's not going to work."

She managed to get him after a few seconds, on his side, but the contact was too weak and short for what she had in mind. Neji retaliated by jabbing his fingers in her solar plexus and all of Aoi's air left her lungs as they collapsed in on themselves. Mizuki finally noticed them and yelled at Neji for using a bloodline limit in taijutsu class, before ordering Aoi to the hospital.

Aoi took her time, strolling along as if she was in no hurry. When she actually arrived in the hospital the nurse who examined her gave her a questioning look. "Why did they send you here again?"

"Hyuga Neji used Gentle Fist on me."

"Does it hurt anywhere?"

"No."

"Well, there doesn't seem to be any real damage," she assessed. "Rest for the day, but go back to class tomorrow."

Her reasoning was thus: Gentle Fist worked by injecting a burst of chakra into the opponent's chakra conduits and damaging the organ they surrounded. It required precision and speed, but no powerful damaging blows; just a touch was enough.

In her opinion, it was uncannily similar to combat medical ninjutsu. The only difference was that medical ninjutsu didn't target the chakra system but the organ itself. Only minimal contact would be needed for a chakra scalpel to cut through muscle and bone and have similar if not more devastating effects than the Gentle Fist style. Speed and precision were crucial, while power was unimportant, just like for Gentle Fist.

The trouble was that Aoi didn't know how to make chakra scalpels yet, but if she just managed to touch Neji she could send a wave of numbing chakra into his body and jeopardize his fighting completely. Or that was the theory, anyway. She'd found that when she got him on the side it was much harder than she anticipated. Maybe because of the clothes barrier.

She frowned, absently toying with the chakra stone on her right hand. That would be a serious draw-back. If she could only use combat jutsu while it was skin-on-skin, the areas she could target would be extremely limited. She imagined all medics had this problem at the beginning. Hell, maybe the Hyuga themselves had had trouble with it at some point. But she knew for a fact that healing jutsu could be performed through the physical barrier of clothes, and so could the Gentle Fist.

On a side note she wondered why more Hyuga weren't medics. With their eyes, their style and their chakra control, they had the most optimal conditions anyone could hope for. It was almost as if the clan had been made for the med-nin ranks.

Either way, the Gentle Fist was Konoha's strongest taijutsu style and Aoi's idea was to somehow adapt it to combat medical ninjutsu. She had no Byakugan but one only needed a baseline knowledge of anatomy to guess where the major organs and vessels were on a living body. It was worth a shot. If it didn't work, she'd just switch back to Academy standard.


	11. Manipulative

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [manipulative: exercising unscrupulous control or influence over a person or situation.]

The class was unusually subdued for the weeks following the Uchiha massacre. The whole of Konoha was subdued, and for a while the topic became a sort of taboo, never to be spoken of in broad daylight. The fact that it had been caused by one of the village's most promising young shinobi added a whole layer of tragedy to the event.

By keeping the clans in the dark about the true reason for the massacre, the Hokage had managed to avoid potential civil war breaking out. Instead, it was the civilians who were uneasy. The reminder that a single ninja could cause damage on that scale awakened a wave of unrest among the population, manifesting itself with distrustful looks and petitions for more regulation in the village's training of their killers. The Uchiha clan had been comprised of civilian families too.

The Hokage dissipated most of the tension, though the Academy students had to comply with a few absurd rules for the following months. No using or carrying weapons except in bukijutsu class. Two hours of community service tasks every week, which were essentially D-rank missions they didn't get paid for. A new subject called Education for Citizenship more commonly known as 'the stupid civvie class' which they were terminally forbidden from skipping by the Hokage himself. It was taught by a civilian instructor named Hana who despaired a bit when she realized exactly how deeply the Shinobi way of life was ingrained in some clan children. "But Neji, surely she could have refused?"

Neji stared at her like she'd grown an extra head. "No, Hyuga don't refuse missions, even when they know they are suicide."

"But what if the orders told you to kill an innocent baby, for example? Would you still do it?"

Neji remained silent for a while. "Yes," he finally replied.

Hana was horrified.

Aoi watched from her seat at the back. The questions Hana asked would make perfect sense if they'd been in a different world, but here they just seemed terribly naive. Hana herself had a pitiful innocent air about her, her green eyes wide and trusting. She was the kind of person that would volunteer in orphanages, give money to beggars, and in general dedicate her life to making others' better. She wouldn't survive two seconds as a ninja.

Even the civilian-born kids made an effort to think like a shinobi would and not like their parents had taught them to all their life. "So suppose someone in your team was taken hostage," Hana asked Ten Ten, "and you could put off the mission for a while and get them out, or go ahead and abandon them. Which would you choose?"

Ten Ten gave the textbook answer. "Completing the mission has priority over everything else."

"But don't you care about your teammate's life? How would you feel if you were the one taken hostage?"

"If I was taken hostage," she replied slowly, "I'd have to remove myself from the situation so my teammate could complete the mission."

Hana paled. "How?"

"Well, if it's possible by freeing myself, or, you know, the suicide pills. Or running my neck into the enemy's kunai, or biting out my tongue. Whatever."

That seemed to be the breaking point. Hana's hands slammed down on the table and her voice came out in a screech. "They're teaching you kids how to commit suicide?"

The lesson wasn't very productive after that. They were supposed to learn about the values of a citizen, ethics, some philosophy, but it went over the children's heads completely. All the moral dilemmas she proposed they answered without the slightest hint of hesitation. At the end of the day, Hana dismissed them wearily and put her head in her arms as they left the classroom.

When she lifted her head again a few minutes later, the quiet girl who sat at the back (Orai? Io? Something like that) was standing in front of her desk, staring at her with a mix of pity and amusement. It was an expression she wasn't used to, especially coming from a child. The yellow eyes made the staring kind of creepy too. "Yes?"

"I was just wondering what you were planning on doing," the girl replied vaguely, mirth plain in her voice.

Hana sighed. They were alone in the classroom, everyone else having already filed out. "Did they really teach you how to commit suicide?"

"They taught us it was an option. ' _When in possession of crucial information compromising the village's security, or in a situation where torture is the only alternative, the ninja may choose to commit suicide_.'" She blinked slowly. "Some of the most important missions in history were only successful because someone stayed back to set up a suicide ambush, like the Second Hokage."

Hana slumped on her desk again, defeated. She couldn't believe it. Sure, she knew ninja died all the time, but... But... "Yes, but... They shouldn't be _teaching_ you that!"

There was a silence.

Hana could see what they were doing with these children - they were trying to turn them into machines, obeying without question, which was the exact opposite of what a classroom should do. Teachers were supposed to push their students to _question_ knowledge, to find out why the world was the way it was and think for themselves, not behave like emotionless robots.

"If it makes you feel better, not all of them are like that," Aoi said. "Rock Lee wouldn't abandon a teammate and neither would Ten Ten, even if she claims otherwise."

She didn't mention the Hyuga, or herself.

"What about you?"

Aoi shrugged, the ghost of a smile playing at the corner of her lips. "Depends."

Hana decided she didn't want to know. Ninja children were thoroughly disturbing. "Well, you should be heading on home. Run along."

"You still haven't told me if you plan to do anything."

"About what?"

There it was again, the mocking light in her eyes. Like she knew exactly what Hana was thinking and found it childish, or funny. "This. The obvious mental and emotional conditioning going on, the brainwashing, the manipulation."

Hana stared at Aoi.

"Though you should know, the Academy's not so bad. It's actually surprising it manages to produce competent ninja despite its _civilian_ methods. Other institutions are much more brutal."

That was not the way normal eight-year-old children talked, no matter how mature. Hana made a split-second decision. "Would you like to have afternoon tea with me, Aoi-san?"

"Alright," Aoi replied with an indulgent smile.

Hana, as Aoi had suspected, was painfully naive, even for a civilian. She was twenty years old and a regular teacher at the civilian school of Konoha. Her hometown was a small, isolated village near Otafuku Gai. She'd never seen a ninja before arriving to Konoha two years ago. She knew they were soldiers, but sincerely believed they were good people underneath, and only fought to protect the village, and never did more harm than was strictly necessary. In part this was because of the glorified image of the Shinobi ranks actively cultivated among the population, but mostly because Hana was a deluded, gullible idealist.

Her house reflected her personality perfectly. It was a small one-story home near the outer walls of Konoha, all pastel tones and lovely flowers under the windows. If Aoi had bothered to pay attention in the kunoichi special classes, she'd have learned that the particular combination signified "Welcome" and "Happiness."

The mug of milk she gave her had a picture of a pink flower on the handle. The woman sure tried to prove she was worthy of her name.

Aoi found the whole thing entertaining, which was why she'd agreed to spend some time with her. Hana was a rarity, a kind of person she'd never expected to meet in this world, much less a hidden village.

They talked about the nice weather, Mizuki and the Academy. It was plain the teacher thought Aoi was a weird, amoral little kid, but it only seemed to make her morbid fascination grow. Aoi sat through a few questions about her life up to that point, which she blandly lied about, before the woman finally asked her what she'd meant with her earlier comment.

"Well, there are some organizations who train their prospective ninja together for years, brainwashing them into absolute loyalty, and then order them to kill each other. It's like their graduation exam."

"But... The Bloody Mist stopped that practice about ten years ago..."

Aoi took another sip of milk. "The Bloody Mist aren't the only ones, trust me. Ninja kill and die all the time, you realize." Really, she wondered what her reaction would be if she told her about all the underhanded assassinations and unofficial missions going on in Root. She'd flip.

"But you're not ninja, you're eight-year-old kids. You shouldn't be learning about that yet. You should be learning maths, and playing with puzzles and dolls."

Aoi didn't reply, instead choosing to stare at her through half-lidded yellow eyes. "You're interesting, Hana," she offered.

That seemed to anger her. Whether it was the lack of honorific, the words themselves, or the detached way in which they rolled out of her mouth was anyone's guess. "You don't see anything wrong," Hana ground out, forgetting she was talking to a child as her anger rose, "with kids dying on battlefields? With thirteen-year-olds murdering their entire clan?"

"Of course it's wrong." The whole shinobi system was wrong. It was geared for conflict, war, and killing, much like the military and weapons of her old world. "And it's wrong that people see it as a normal thing."

Hana was visibly confused. "Then why do you act as if..."

"As if I don't care?" Aoi smirked faintly. "Because it's wrong and sad, and I really _don't_ care."

* * *

 

Hyuga Hinata sat by herself in a corner of the courtyard, twirling her thumbs while she watched Naruto stand up to that bully again. He was a year older than them, bigger and stronger than Naruto, and seemed to be trying to steal his packed lunch. Hinata was torn between helping and staying put, because her father would be angry if she got into any fights at school, and besides the boy was kind of scary. Still, she really, really wished she was brave enough to help.

"Hi," a girl's voice said next to her. Hinata jumped, not having heard anyone approach. The newcomer had yellow eyes and short black hair. She was pretty, though not as pretty as Yamanaka Ino. "My name is Aoi. I'm one year above you."

"Hi," she replied clumsily, not really sure why an upperclassman was approaching her like this. "I'm Hyuga Hinata."

Aoi sat beside her on the grass, following her previous line of sight to the bully, who was currently grabbing Naruto by his shirt lapels and jostling him around. Hinata bit her lip as the urge to do something returned, not because it was Naruto in particular but because she didn't like seeing people get hurt or treated unfairly in general.

"I could do something, you know," Aoi proposed out of the blue.

"Wh-what?"

She gestured towards the scene. "That boy is my classmate. I could tell him to stop, if you want."

Hinata's pupil-less eyes widened. She wondered why the girl wasn't doing it already, if she said she could. Was she afraid of Naruto like everyone else? But Aoi just kept staring at her, as if waiting for something. "P-please?"

She smiled. It didn't look like a genuine smile, in Hinata's opinion. "First, you have agree to help me with my taijutsu."

"Huh?"

"I need a sparring partner," Aoi repeated slowly. "Can you do that in exchange for me stopping Daichi?"

Hinata couldn't believe someone had asked her for help! She'd always been deemed useless by her family, and now someone thought she could actually help them, and an upperclassman no less! She would have said yes even without the deal. But Aoi didn't seem the kind of person to go out of her way for anyone without a reason, as proved by her bargaining. So maybe she could try to get something more out of it before she agreed?

"Okay, I'll help you," she chirped, "but you have to stop Daichi from bullying anyone, every time, not just today." 

Aoi gave her a strange look. "Fine," she grudgingly replied, before unfolding from her seated position and heading towards the two boys. After a moment of hesitation Hinata followed along, trailing a bit behind, curious as to what would happen. Aoi's strides were lazy and unhurried, not picking up the pace even as Daichi grabbed Naruto's lunch and smashed it on the ground. Hinata let out a soft "eep!" but didn't dare ask her to walk any faster.

"Hi, Daichi," she greeted, without any particular inflection in her voice.

He grunted in reply, too busy pushing Naruto's face into the ground, who struggled furiously beneath him.

"If you stop bullying Naruto I'll give you some of my pizza."

Daichi let go of the boy. "Really? That weird cheese thing from yesterday?"

Aoi blinked assent.

"Alright, deal! You're awesome, Aoi. Where's your bag?"

"Class."

Daichi grinned and left skipping towards the building. "Oh yeah! Pit-zah! Here I come! I'm starving!"

Hinata watched the whole thing with fascination. That bargaining tactic really did work, it was so useful. She should try it more, it was the kind of thing her dad would approve of. Meanwhile, Naruto had stood up, picked up his lunchbox and started cleaning it with his sleeve. "I didn't need your help, you know," he grumbled, but Hinata could see in his shifty eyes how happy and grateful he was. Almost hopeful?

There was a pause. "Don't talk to me, monster," Aoi replied placidly, and walked away, leaving two shocked seven-year-olds behind.

"Uh-ummm... I'm sure she didn't mean that..." Then Hinata ran away, because the mask of bitterness that fell on Naruto's face scared her.

"Why did you do that, Momoru-san?" she asked when she caught up, still shocked and a bit angry.

"I don't want to be his friend. But it doesn't matter. Daichi won't steal Naruto's food anymore as long as I give him some of my pizza, and we had a deal, right?"

Hinata wasn't very happy but she did have a point, Naruto wouldn't get bullied anymore. Well, if she hung around Aoi for long enough she could maybe convince her that Naruto wasn't a monster but a brave little boy, and that stopping bullies was good. "R-right." She blushed, and a little thrill started in her stomach. This was the first time she ever did anything like this, that she ever succeeded at helping anyone. It felt funny, but it was a good feeling. Maybe if she kept bargaining with Aoi she could get her to do other good things.

* * *

 

The allowance from the Orphan fund came every Thursday and was only enough to pay for basic necessities, like food and clothes. Aoi didn't spend much in the way of clothes - she'd burned her Root uniform, but what she got in replacement wasn't particularly fancy or expensive. A few dark shirts, knee-length shorts appropriate for the warm weather of the Land of Fire, a jacket for the days it rained.

Instead she'd spent the money on expanding her library. Some scrolls she'd managed to wring from Mizuki, the hospital, or the village library, but others she had to buy, and they weren't cheap.

She'd just come back from the bookstore and had settled down on the dusty couch when a voice startled her.

"Danzo-sama expects you at seven a.m. tomorrow in training facility three."

When she looked up, no one was there, but her window was open.

Of course she didn't go to the meeting the next morning. She left a note to the Hokage's secretary that carefully didn't mention Root and headed to the Academy as usual. She left the Academy grounds with Hana and they went for tea again. Aoi stayed with her throughout the afternoon, until an ANBU with a dog mask and spiky silver hair showed himself in front of her while Hana was looking away, at which point she bade her goodbyes and returned home.

She felt her tail watching her until she slipped into her bed. It was intentional, of course, to let her know she was safe. Since she woke up the net morning in her own bed, she concluded the Hokage had managed to keep his word, for now.

She spared a thought for Shin, who didn't have the luxury of his protection. She could bet that he and Sai were back in the organization's clutches by now, even if it was against his will, though she'd never truly established whether Shin was loyal to Root or not or what his motivations were.

It didn't really concern her anyway. She had enough with her own problems. The Sandaime wouldn't be able to spare one of his ANBU for her every time, and she needed to find another way of making her position in the village more secure.


	12. Intent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [intent (adj.): having the mind and will focused on a specific purpose.]

Aris was probably one of the few who realized that Aoi had changed. He didn't remember her very well from before, honestly, except that she was lazy, boring, and didn't seem to care about anything. She just read and slept.

Only now he started to realize that Aoi was incredibly smart. Like, so smart it was _she_ who found _them_ boring. And that she had started to train with really hard in taijutsu, and that she really was much better at any of the things she did at school than most people seemed to think, including Mizuki-sensei.

The first time Aris noticed something was off was when Mizuki-sensei distributed out a small black stone to each student. They were round and smooth to the to touch. "This is called a Yang chakra stone. You have to make it stick to your hand with chakra, but the chakra has to be made with as much physical energy and as little spiritual energy as possible. If there's too much spiritual energy, the stone will break. You can keep it to practice at home, but don't get your hopes up. It might take you a long time to be able to do it."

"Hmph, easy," Neji Hyuga said, holding his palm upside down with the stone stuck to it. It wasn't a surprise, really, he was good at everything. What was a surprise was the energetic voice shouting from the left side of the classroom.

"Yosh, I can do it too!"

Everyone turned towards Lee, incredulous. "What? But his chakra control's crap!" Daichi whispered indignantly. His own black stone lay in pieces on his palm, which were inching closer to each other to form the whole stone again. "Hey, Aoi! How come he can do it?"

Aoi looked up from the book she was reading under her desk. "He can only use raw chakra, so it makes sense." She reached out and took her own stone between her fingers, examining it closely. Daichi grumbled something unintelligible and diverted his attention somewhere else.

What was raw chakra? How did she know Lee could only use that? Aris continued watching Aoi as she furrowed her brows. She balanced the stone on the tip of her index finger and started to spin it with chakra, slowly at first and then faster. There wasn't even a crack on its surface. She nodded to herself, put it down, and returned to her book. "How did you do it?"

"Huh?"

"How did you get it to spin?"

She shrugged. "Dunno."

Aris glared suspiciously at her but she continued reading, oblivious. He spotted Neji frowning at them from across the room.

When they learnt their first jutsu - the clone jutsu, the easiest of the E-rank techniques - Aoi performed it flawlessly on her first try, creating a perfect copy of herself that blinked at the classroom once and sighed before disappearing. Neji was frowning at her then, too, which confirmed to Aris that she wasn't supposed to be able to do that. The next day Aoi was yelled at by Mizuki for sleeping while he talked. She got yelled at so often almost everyone still believed she was among the worst students in the class.

Aris himself was in the top five. He'd been working hard since he started the Academy and though he wasn't naturally good at the ninja things like some clan children, he was quick to grasp concepts and understand their foundation, and see how they applied in a practical scenario. At one point Daichi had said those were book-smarts and what really mattered was how much chakra you had, but Aris did little more than train and study to the point where he could generally keep up with the clan kids.

Neji was on a whole other league. When Ruko died, no one was left to truly compete with him, or so Aris had thought. Now, as he watched his friend yawn and scratch her nose distractedly, he wondered if the only reason the Hyuga was Rookie of the Year was because Aoi Momoru disliked all the attention.

* * *

 

The small grey rat tried to bite Aoi's finger off when she reached into the cage. She glared it down, gripped it around the neck and placed it on the table. It scrambled and made a squeaking noise as she rendered it unconscious with a small wave of chakra into the brain. The exact intensity of it had taken her a while to figure out, too much and the rats died, too little and they awoke before she was done.

She'd worked with rats in her other life, a project involving induced myocardial infarction, and her supervisor had been extremely insistent on the anesthesizing procedure. She supposed she could work with the rat still conscious but there really was no need to when she could fix it with a tiny bit of chakra. She suspected making a human faint would be harder, since their chakra systems were much more evolved.

She tied the rat to the table face-up with a bit of tape, and got rid of a patch of hair on the belly with a razor, exposing bare, pinkish skin. "Working hypothesis: animals, which have primitive chakra systems, should be much easier to heal than a regular human." She pierced the skin with a finely-sharpened kunai, drawing a deep red line all across the bare patch. Superficial cuts were no longer a challenge - she made sure to cut through muscle and nerves, and even pierced between the ribs into the lung.

She'd also thought of sterilizing the instruments but discarded the idea. Enemy ninja didn't sterilize theirs.

"Method: inflict a wound on an animal and attempt to heal it." She chuckled to herself. Her supervisor would be horrified at the lack of planning and clear objectives.

She took a deep breath, summoned Yin chakra to her hand and placed it over the cut, using the Diagnostic Palm first to gauge the depth of it. Then she felt around for the currents of raw chakra between the cells, and very carefully added the medical chakra to them. The result was refined chakra quite similar to what she was used to. She manipulated it into the edges of the affected area, watching with wide eyes as the cut closed under her palm.

"Hell yeah!" she cried, throwing her arms up in the air and doing a little victory dance in front of the table.

Five minutes later the rat still hadn't woken up.

Frowning, she used the Diagnostic palm again to look for a pulse.

After a few seconds she made a dissatisfied noise and scribled down something on a notebook. "Conclusion: death of subject during procedure. Further investigation is necessary."

* * *

 

"Hinata, are you scared of hurting me?"

Hinata blushed. She was one of those people who blushed with their whole face, not just their cheeks. "Uh... No, Momoru-senpai."

"Then why the hell are you holding back?" This wasn't the first time Aoi lost her patience with the little girl. As Hinata kept quiet, her eyes flashed angrily. "We've already had this conversation. I can't believe you're doing it again!"

Hinata looked down and fiddled with her hands. Her eyes were watery and her lips pinched. Aoi sighed, reminding herself that yelling wouldn't accomplish anything. At this stage Hinata was little more than a coward and a crybaby terrified of hurting others. But she needed her to go all out; otherwise, these sessions were useless. "My sparring partner in class is Neji," she stated more calmly.

"Oh, N-neji-san... Really?"

"Yes. So I need you to fight as hard as you can, otherwise I'll never be able to beat him." She bent her knees into the Gentle Fist beginning stance. "Ready?"

Hinata nodded and mimicked her, the blush still not having completely faded from her face.

It had been an uphill battle, to get Hinata to teach her the Hyugas' style. Even when Aoi explained that she was only experimenting so she could be able to fight using medical ninjutsu, Hinata was still hesitant, because the clan had always zealously protected the secrets of its bloodline limit. But Hinata wasn't one to break a promise, and after some more bargaining and feigned hurt Aoi got what she wanted.

The katas were slow and soft, requiring great flexibility, reminiscent of the movement of water. At first Aoi had stuck religiously to Hinata's indications, forsaking the Academy style. But then she'd had to adapt to the demands of medical ninjutsu - which needed slightly more contact, forcing her to use more grabs and throws, and explosive moves from the Academy to be able to quickly dart in and out of range. The changes seemed to put Hinata more at ease, even if the new style was still clearly Gentle Fist-based.

She was honestly astonished by what her child's body could do with a bit of training and chakra enhancement. Backflips, twists, all sort of aerial acrobatics worthy of a gymnast. Somehow she'd expected that attaining the level of athletic ability required of all ninjas would take a little more work.

It had taken her five months of daily practices to stand on equal ground with the Hyuga heir, and another month to win two out of three times.

Given that Hinata practiced at least as much as her, and had been doing so for years, and that Aoi hadn't had any sort of previous martial arts training unless one counted the beatings at Root - which she didn't; all they'd done was increase her pain tolerance - she supposed she had to thank daddy dearest's genes for that.

Still no word from Orochimaru, now that she thought about it, which was strange. She ducked under one of Hinata's strikes, asking herself again what the hell he was doing and why he'd suddenly decided to reproduce and why he hadn't attempted to kidnap her yet. If he wanted her body, which was still the most probable explanation, she would have expected him to train her first, like he did Sasuke. She'd dug out her memories of the timeline and established that he had a child's body that could have been hers at around the time of the Rookie Nine's Chuunin exams... But maybe he'd started doing the transfers before that.

She hit Hinata's arm, sending a wave of numbing chakra into it, then jumped out of range to avoid a particularly vicious side kick.

She couldn't remember much of Orochimaru's techniques except that he had a snake fetish and he could revive past Kages to fight for him. She knew that it would be virtually impossible to defeat him even if she had ten more years of training, but she also knew she wouldn't be able to avoid him for that long. Hell, she might be talented and have a precognition advantage, but he was, as the Hokage had put it, a once-in-a-generation genius with much more experience and knowledge in the ninja arts than anyone in Leaf, maybe even the Hokage himself.

Training, then, became an obsession. Her classmates were training to become Genin, but Aoi was training to survive one of the Sannin. There really was no point of comparison.

One of Hinata's conditions to teaching her Gentle Fist was to spend some time together after their sparring session. Sweaty and exhausted, they dragged themselves to the market and Hinata bought ice cream for them to share. They ate in silence, one girl too shy to say anything and the other too lazy to bother striking up a conversation. Occasionally, though, Hinata timidly commented on the people or the scenery.

That day an old man across the street dropped the bag of apples he was carrying, all the fruits rolling into the street, out of reach. He bent down slowly and painfully, muscles straining with the effort, and started putting them back one by one. Hinata immediately stood up. "Momoru-san, let's go help."

"You can go," Aoi replied, making a vaguely dismissive gesture.

Hinata opened her mouth to say something, blushed, and closed it. Then she opened it again. "If you don't help the old man with me I won't teach you Sweeping Willow tomorrow." She snapped her jaw shut quickly and covered her face with her hands, hardly able to believe she'd actually said it.

Aoi stared at her. Her eyes moved up to the sky, and back down. "Alright," she sighed, getting up from the bench and picking up an apple.

Hinata smiled all the way home.

* * *

 

At night, Aoi walked up and down the side of her apartment complex holding a medical textbook in front of her face, using the streetlight below as a source of illumination. She reached the roof, blinked, and turned around, heading towards the ground. She was testing how long it took for black spots to appear in her vision, familiarizing herself with the depth of her chakra reserves.

It was relatively early in the exercise when a second set of steps came to be heard.

Aoi stopped pacing.

"Long time no see, Aoi-chan."

"Kabuto," she replied evenly, snapping the book shut and turning to face him. He was standing on the side of the building just like her, hands in his pockets and moonlight glinting off his glasses. His hair was longer, he wore it in a low ponytail now.

"My my, forgotten respect already? I've told you to call me senpai."

Fear and loathing churned in her stomach. The hairs on the back of her neck raised with dread and anticipation as her body screamed at her to run away or kill him. _This complex is full of ninja_. _If I scream, someone is bound to come._ She swallowed.

"Don't bother, the whole building is full of silencing tags," he said, as if reading her thoughts.

Yeah, right. Even he couldn't pull that off. Could he? "What do you want?"

"Danzo-sama's upset that you've been ignoring his summons for so long." He pushed up his glasses. "I've been ordered to bring you to him, by whichever means necessary. I do hope you'll come along quietly, Aoi-chan."

She wasn't going back to Root. No, not again. She'd built enough safety nets to ensure it didn't happen - there was too much focus on her, if she suddenly went missing her friends would notice and the Hokage would take action.

And yet Danzo had summoned her. Again. He sure was a persistent bastard. She'd thought he'd given up by now. It had been almost a year since her last summons.

But Kabuto was still standing there, looking casually relaxed and yet a dangerous aura emanated from him, menacing, the aura of a predator. In that moment Aoi remembered all the times he'd hit her for no reason other than to satisfy his sadistic pleasure and tasted the need for revenge in her tongue. She wordlessly dropped her book, which sailed down the stories and hit the floor with a muted thump, and started gathering chakra.

Kabuto watched her, unmoving for a second. "Well, you give me no choice." He almost sounded regretful.

The next thing she felt was a sharp pain in her right shoulder which made her scream and drop to her knees. "Now now," Kabuto whispered in her ear, "I told you there was no use in screaming, didn't I?"

She let go of the chakra anchoring her to the building's side and started falling towards the ground. Her hands raced through the seals for the Replacement jutsu - she fumbled them because of the painful shoulder, dammit, and by the time she started again Kabuto was falling with her, his hand had engulfed her face, and everything went black.

When her vision returned Kabuto was carrying her over his shoulder across the rooftops of Konoha. She couldn't move her body - she felt Kabuto's chakra blocking and paralyzing all her muscles. _It's like the numbing jutsu, only stronger,_ she realized, and by the time he hit the training grounds on the outskirts of the village, she'd managed to summon an overriding wave of chakra that pushed his out of her system.

She could see a kunai hostler on his hip, so she reached down, grabbed something sharp, and plunged it into his side. The motion also cut her own fingers but it was worth it, as Kabuto swore and dropped her. Aoi rolled away from him, heart pounding erratically.

"Son of a bitch," Kabuto spat, holding a hand over the wound.

Out here in the training grounds no one would come to her aid. They were built far away from the residential areas so as not to disturb the civilians, and even if someone did hear sounds of fighting they wouldn't really come to investigate - it was the training grounds, that was what they were for. There was something about a curfew and night patrols but Aoi had no time to think about that.

_He hasn't seen me in a long time. He doesn't know how much I've improved or what I can do. That's my only advantage._

She jumped on him again before he could heal himself completely, but he just spun, grabbed her arm, swept her feet and pinned her against the ground.

"That was mean, Aoi-chan," he hissed through clenched teeth.

Aoi scrambled, mind racing through her limited jutsu arsenal, and came up with nothing. Taijutsu, then. Gritting her teeth, she twisted to kick him across the face. It was a costly move that sacrificed her arm to a shoulder dislocation and an open fracture at the elbow but she didn't have much choice. The pain hit her as she stood up, making her eyes widen. Yep, that arm was lost now. She tried not to look down.

Kabuto straightened a few yards away and pushed up his cracked glasses with two fingers.

* * *

 

Kakashi had the habit of compressing his chakra whenever he visited the memorial stone, because he didn't want to be found or interrupted by anyone while he was there.

The nightmares had woken him up again tonight. Even after so many years he still recalled with perfect clarity that moment, Rin's face, his hand plunged through her chest, warm and slippery with blood and bits of crushed heart. His failure, his betrayal, engraved in his his retina for the rest of his life.

The Stone was ruthlessly silent under his gaze.

Like other nights, he lost track of time in the memories of the past. At some point a couple of chakra signatures registered in his peripheral consciousness but he ignored them. Then one of them _spiked_ , jolting him out of his trance because he recognized it. He'd been spying on and off on her for several years now, after all. His head whipped in their direction, ears straining.

"Son of a bitch!" A sound of scuffle. "That was mean, Aoi-chan."

Kakashi was in the training ground in less time than it took to blink.

The scene he found there was more or less what he'd expected. Two shapes opposite each other, the closest and shortest, Aoi's, clutching her shoulder with her opposite arm. The other was clearly older and masculine though it was hard to distinguish much in the darkness, save for the glint of glasses and the metal of a Konoha headband. A quick inspection revealed no other presence.

"A bit late for a spar, isn't it?" Kakashi asked, casually strolling closer. There was no official curfew in Konoha and hadn't been for over ten years, but wartime habits were hard to break, and most of the population didn't venture into the streets at night, even ninja. The midnight hours traditionally belonged to shady businesses and the ANBU patrols that hunted them.

Aoi's body tensed, then relaxed completely when she glanced back and recognized him. Huh. She'd only seen him a couple of times as far as he was aware, and in both occasions he'd been wearing his porcelain mask. Well, he supposed his hair was kind of distinctive.

But Kakashi's eye never left the man on the other side of the clearing, merely cataloguing Aoi's reactions through his peripheral vision. He didn't recognize the signature, and it was too dark to identify him by sight, but he must have been at least high-chuunin by the way he registered in Kakashi's chakra sense. There was a beat of silence, and then the ninja said, "Perhaps another day, then, Aoi-chan," before using shuunshin in the direction of the gates.

Kakashi didn't bother following. Instead he focused on Aoi, who was trembling and pale as a sheet. "What happened?" Her arm, now that he looked closer, had an open fracture at the level of the elbow, the bone jutting out of the skin. Ouch.

Aoi opened her mouth to reply, then got distracted by her arm. Kakashi saw her grit her teeth and push the bone back into the skin with her other hand. "Can you set my shoulder?"

He silently approached, lay his palm on it, and popped it back into place with a yank. Aoi let out a long breath. The lack of strained reaction told him she'd numbed the entire limb already. "What happened?" he repeated.

"Root wants me back apparently."

Kakashi remained silent, musing over the statement. He sort of empathized. 

"Please take me to the hospital."

He gathered the child up in his arms, being careful not to jostle her arm, and took off. He'd report this to the Hokage in the morning.


	13. Predictable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [predictable: 1. Behaving in the expected manner. 2. easy to foretell, especially on the basis of special knowledge.]

Ah, the last year at the Academy. Squealing twelve-year-old girls more worried about maintenance of their nails than their kunai; and boys, plus Tenten, in competition over who could burp out the whole alphabet. And everyone but Neji still had cooties.

To be honest, Aoi was almost glad for the two-day-reprieve the hospital stay granted her. She wasn't so happy about all the missed training. Win some, lose some, she supposed.

Her arm was in a cast, and would have to remain in the cast for a whole week after she left the hospital, during which she was banned from heavy exercise. While she outwardly grumbled about the setback she also admitted to herself it wasn't that serious. In her old world broken bones took months to heal, so the recovery period felt comparatively short.

Surprisingly she got visits. The first was Lee, who kept pressing for details, not satisfied with her explanation that it'd been a training accident. He worried about the classes she was missing (they were covering the basics of tracking, apparently). His grandma also came along, that crinkly old woman Aoi had only seen once. She brought cookies and asked if she needed anything. Aoi expressed her wish to have some of her scrolls and books to distract her. Lee promptly left and returned within fifteen minutes, carrying half of her library in his arms and a cage sitting on top.

"I didn't know you had pet hamsters, Aoi-chan! What are their names?"

Aoi was mildly concerned. You'd think someone who was learning tracking would be able to tell the difference between a pet hamster and a rat. To Lee's dismay the cage was taken away by the next nurse who walked in screeching about hospital sanitary regulations.

Hana also visited. Unlike Lee she didn't ask how her arm had broken - she didn't really want to know. Instead she agreed to help Aoi with a bit of research she'd been putting off for years, by talking to the nurses around the hospital and looking for medicinal journals in waiting rooms.

The answers Hana came back with confirmed what Aoi had suspected since she got her first medical textbook. Diseases in the world of Naruto were uncommon. Or at least, traditional diseases - infections, hormonal imbalances, cancer. It was as if the body was sturdier, as if it could protect itself better against damage and function better as a whole. She also found out that these traditional diseases tended to affect civilians more than ninja. There was probably a link between the low morbidity and the development of the chakra system. In a way, it made sense. Chakra was like blood - it maintained homeostasis, nourished cells, healed and helped them grow. That it somehow provided a boost to the immune system wasn't a huge leap of reasoning.

In contrast, genetic diseases were much more common, as well as diseases that affected the chakra system itself. There was a myriad of those: chakra hypo and hypersensitivity, Constricted Chakra Pathway Syndrome, Prenatal Coil Malformation which was what Lee had been diagnosed with. A lot of documentation on abnormal tenketsu and chakra pathway blockage, chakra imbalance, and chakra depletion. All very interesting and study-worthy.

Aoi discussed her conclusions with Hana, who did her best to understand her technical jargon.

The investigation awakened the desire in Aoi to find out exactly how advanced science was here. Technology wasn't very impressive. There was electricity, there were machines that looked like the ancestors of computers, but she'd yet to see an electron microscope anywhere. At least, biological _knowledge_ was more or less up to par, if not superior, to her old world, which was strange, because progression of science and technology had always gone hand in hand as far as she'd been taught.

Maybe she really shouldn't think of scientific progress as a unique straight line common to all civilizations; after all, the laws of nature were completely different here. Ninja might be nowhere near the atomic bomb or space travel, but they could recombine DNA, create whole sentient organisms from scratch, and possibly plunge the whole of humanity into a collective hallucination for an indefinite period of time.

Still, there was a significant lack of scientific community. The only areas of research Konoha was interested in were those that had direct application: medicine and armament. And even then the research was badly planned and chaotic. They hadn't heard of the scientific method at all.

Aoi could sort of see why Orochimaru had decided to branch out.

On the second day Daichi and Aris showed up with more questions, all evaded or deflected. Aris brought his notes for Aoi to catch up on lessons. When Aoi was finally discharged at the end of the day, she went looking for Hinata and asked for a spar. The arm made her clumsy but she compensated by being unusually aggressive, imagining she was beating up that creep Kabuto all the while.

* * *

 

The Hokage puffed thoughtfully on his pipe.

"But if it wasn't you..."

The end of the sentence curled in the air like a snake. Danzo concealed the irritation he felt with a blank expression.

"We need to keep more surveillance on her."

"You can't waste your ANBU like that, Hiruzen. Graduate her early and give her to a Jounin." He would have offered to take her back himself, but he knew it would be opposed, and maybe not the best option given that one of his agents might be double-crossing him.

"I'd rather she graduated with a team. There isn't long left anyway."

Danzo didn't reply - his opinion wouldn't change anything. As an aside, the fact that Hiruzen had suspected him of the kidnapping attempt was insulting. Danzo was ambitious, but not stupid.

* * *

 

Maito Gai watched from under the shadow of a tree as the boy continued punching the log, time after time, even though the skin of his knuckles was split and every additional punch was no doubt painful. This was the fifth time he spotted him this week, training whenever he had free time between classes, and after school until the sun set. Yesterday he'd been practicing kicks while Gai went on his handstand laps around the village.

Truly, the Jonin had had an eye on him for a while now. His name was Rock Lee, a Nine Tails orphan living with his grandmother, and he had a problem with his chakra. He couldn't perform any of the basic jutsu, which was a guaranteed fail in the Academy graduation exam. Despite all his effort and enthusiasm, Lee would never become a ninja.

Something in Gai broke a little at the thought. The boy was the embodiment of Hard Work. Gai wanted to help, somehow. "A hundred and one, two, three!" Lee continued counting, oblivious to his audience.

His punches weren't good. The elbow jutted out when he extended his arm, and the twist of the wrist at the end was exaggerated. Gai had to suppress the desire to appear in the clearing with a magnificent Dynamic Entry and offer him some much needed guidance.

He was the only kid training. Admittedly, it was the only log in the Academy yard. The rest of the children were eating their lunches or relaxing in the shade, enjoying their free period.

Eventually Lee was approached by one of his classmates, a pale girl with short black hair. "Lee, stop for a sec."

"I can't, Aoi-chan! I must complete a hundred more punches before next period!"

"I want to try healing your knuckles."

Lee was surprised enough to stop and not protest when she took his hand.

Gai lifted an obscenely thick eyebrow. Medical ninjutsu? Normally the specialization wasn't started until Chuunin, because it required the fine chakra control that Genin lacked. But after a few seconds the girl gave a satisfied smile and Lee's whoop of joy was indeed an indication that she succeeded. "Amazing! Thanks to you I'll be able to complete two hundred more punches!"

"Yeah. Watch out, you're exaggerating the twist of the wrist at the end."

"Why do you bother?" a third voice interrupted the conversation. "It's not as if he'll actually pass the graduation test. There's no point."

Aoi looked at the new arrival, then away, as if uninterested. In an inversely proportional manner Gai's own interest spiked. He'd heard of Hyuga Neji as well, the Branch House member on his way to true masterdom of the Gentle Fist style. He'd been dubbed a genius early on and his attitude reflected that, exhibiting the same arrogance and smugness as Gai's Eternal Rival Kakashi in his Academy days. He knew by experience that the genius types tended to belittle those who lacked their talent and underestimate the importance of Hard Work. If Gai were the boy's Sensei, he'd make sure to set him on the right track! Hm, now there was a thought.

"He can't become a ninja with only taijutsu. He's fated to fail." Neji's words seemed to weigh down on Lee, whose shoulders had slumped and head was bent down.

The girl shrugged. "Nah. He'll pass." She said it with such off-handed certainty that even Gai was inexplicably inclined to believe her.

"You really think so, Aoi-chan?"

"How, exactly, do you expect him to be a ninja if he can't even use ninjutsu?" Neji continued, ignoring Lee's hopeful question. "Some people are simply not destined for it. It is pure stupidity not to acknowledge one's limitations."

There was a moment of silence in which Aoi and Neji stared at each other. Both their postures were relaxed, but there was a tension in the air like a taut wire between them that would just take the tiniest of pulls to snap. Gai felt he was witnessing the beginnings of a Deep Rooted Rivalry forming and couldn't help but cheer mentally at the thought. Also, he wondered who this girl was, one had to admire her nonplussed attitude in front of the Hyuga genius. "You're a bit stuck on the whole fate thing, aren't you," she finally replied.

"Why do you bother with him? He's not worth your time." The way he fixed Aoi with his gaze and completely ignored the subject of their conversation made it apparent that it wasn't really about Lee.

She just shrugged in her typical lazy manner and turned away from him.

"Clearly, you're not as smart as you think you are."

Aoi rounded up on him, smiling widely. "Neji, if all you wanted was a _proper_ fight with me you should have just _said_ so."

Gai flickered into the yard just in time to catch a hand coated in Jyuuken chakra, and the kick that was meant to swat it aside. "That is admirable enthusiasm!" he boomed. "But free period is not the time to settle this argument!" He let go of both twelve-year-olds, who scrambled back and looked up at him, wide-eyed. Gai let them bask in his Amazing Youthfulness for a second before continuing. "If you start a fight now, you'll miss class, and that is not the path to becoming a good ninja, especially when you're so close to graduation!"

Hyuga Neji recovered more or less quickly and muttered something like "Weirdo." Gai grabbed him by the back of his shirt collar as he turned away.

"Now, Hyuga-san, that will not do. At least acknowledge the Hard Work your classmate Rock Lee has been demonstrating!"

Neji seemed at a loss of words for a moment, then asked, in a disbelieving and slightly frightened voice, "Are you the Jounin Maito Gai?"

"Ah, that is heartwarming! I can't believe my Youthfulness has reached even the ears of young Academy students! Yes, I am Maito Gai, the Beautiful Green Beast of Konoha!" He had to drop the kid in favor of doing his Good Guy pose. His teeth _pinged_.

"Ah... Er... I must go back to class." Neji swiftly escaped.

Aoi was still gaping at him wide-eyed and seemingly in shock. She swallowed noisily. "I, um." She fled right behind Neji, tripping over herself in her haste.

Gai was disappointed but it was quickly forgotten as he turned around to see Lee staring at him with stars in his eyes. "Wow! You're so cool!"

Pride swelled in his chest. "Thank you! I must say, I admire the determination and effort you put into your training!"

Lee's eyes glistened with Manly Tears of Joy. "Do you think I can become a ninja?"

"Of course! With Hard Work, anything is possible!"

Lee had to leave for class shortly afterwards, but not before Gai promised he'd give him a few pointers in the afternoon. He pushed the boy during that training session - and Gai's definition of _light training_ was already frightening enough. When he _pushed_ , it was truly demonic - to test his resolve, and was astounded by Lee's vows to finish the exercise even when he was coughing up blood and dragging himself on the ground by his elbows.

That settled it. He was going to make sure the boy made it to Genin. And if the only way to do that was to become his Jounin-sensei, then so be it. It would be an honor to train such a student.

Gai decided he wanted Neji Hyuga on his prospective team too. He was convinced he could turn the so-called genius into an exemplary shinobi who valued more than just innate talent!

As for the third member... He had a pretty good idea of who he wanted that to be as well.

* * *

 

Extra: Lee

During the months before graduation, Aoi-chan started acting weird.

At first Lee thought maybe she liked him, like _liked_ liked him. Except her compliments were a bit unusual and honestly it was starting to creep him out. Yes it was flattering at the beginning to hear how _great_ his _red_ shirt looked on him and how _cool_ his fashion sense was and how it would be _awesome_ if it didn't change after graduation. But then she started doing it every morning as part of her usual greeting...

"Good morning, Aoi-chan!"

"Hi, Lee. I like your pants, they suit you."

]"Good morning. The lace-things in your shirt are really nice, you shouldn't change them."

"Hi, I like your shoes."

"I slept well, thank you. I like your black jacket."

"Yeah, good morning. That leg-hostler matches with your belt, don't change your outfit when you become Genin."

Neji's fangirls complimented him on his taijutsu skills or his cool attitude or how good he was at the Clone technique. Aoi's insistence on specifically his _clothes_ was what made Lee nervous.

Then, as graduation neared, she started on his hair. According to her, the spiky thing it did when it reached his ears was super-awesome and made him look badass.

Lee, thoroughly confused and creeped out, settled for hoping it was a phase.


	14. Ready

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [ready: 1. In a suitable state for an action or situation; fully prepared. 2. Willing or eager to do something.]

The Hokage was used to eccentric Jounin appearing in his office unannounced, though there was really only one who sailed through the open window head first, spun on his hands, bent his body so his feet were on the ground too, and then straightened, giving him a thumbs up. "Good morning, Hokage-sama! Nice day, isn't it?"

Hiruzen allowed himself an amused smile. In another time he might have been angry at the disregard for protocol and apparent lack in security, but it _was_ a nice day and Konoha was at peace, and those things had never stopped Gai anyway. "Yes," he replied, shuffling some papers on his desk. "Is there anything you need?"

Gai sobered, and immediately Hiruzen gave him all his attention. Gai may be extravagant and eccentric, but he wasn't stupid, and if he thought something was important enough to bring to the Hokage's attention, it probably was. "It's about this year's graduating class." He went on to ask permission to be appointed as a Jounin-sensei to Rock Lee.

Hiruzen nodded throughout the explanation, already thinking about who the other teammates would be. But the Jounin seemed to have his own ideas on this as well. There was no problem with Neji - Gai was an internationally renowned taijutsu master, one of Konoha's elite, an experienced ninja with an impressive mission record under his belt. The Hyuga wouldn't protest. "But I'm afraid you'll have to find a different kunoichi," he objected. "Aoi Momoru's sensei has already been decided."

"Oh." Gai's face fell. "I thought that, since she got along with Lee, they could have good teamwork. And as a medic..."

Hiruzen puffed on his pipe thoughtfully. A medic was indeed optimized in a taijutsu team, allowing the heavy hitters to go that much further in the assurance that someone was looking out for them. But Aoi's situation was delicate, and there was a better person than Gai to handle it. "There's another girl who Lee gets along with, isn't there? The one with the weapons specialization. She might complement the close-range taijutsu of the boys nicely. They'll make a good frontline team."

"Bukijutsu?" Gai piped up. "That could be interesting!"

The matter settled, Hiruzen returned to his letter to the Kazekage. He'd gotten disquieting reports about the new ninja village in the Land of Sound. The letter was a proposal for an intelligence exchange on the matter, but its true motive was to warn Sunagakure, because it was in Konoha's best interest for her allies to be aware of what went on close to their borders.

* * *

 

Aoi shifted the stone between her fingers while she memorized yet another diagram on the tenketsu of the hand. It spun around the distal phalanx of her index finger, the chakra being expelled from the inter-phalangeal tenketsu making it stick to the skin and move at the same time. Mizuki was droning on about the written exam rules, ignoring her even when she was plainly not listening. "If you cheat, you'll be expelled from the Academy indefinitely, and never become ninja. That goes for you, Daichi," he growled.

"Yeah, yeah."

Aoi put her book away and pocketed the stone when Mizuki started handing out the papers. The exam was multi-choice, but answering a question wrong would deduct from your points. Fifteen minutes in, Daichi tapped his desk five times. On his right Aris gave a defeated sigh and casually made his hand into a fist with his thumb sticking out. Daichi grinned and nodded imperceptibly, circling an answer on his paper.

Then they moved on to the practical assessment. This was done on an individual basis, so they all had to wait outside the classroom as their names were called. The students who passed were led to another room, while those who failed exited the classroom looking constipated or in some cases bawling outright.

Aoi dispelled the transformation and Mizuki waved her on without bothering to look up from his paper.

She went to stand besides Tenten, after having calibrated the variables least annoying person in the room and number of steps it took to reach them. "Congratulations on passing," Tenten offered.

Aoi's eye fixed on her. Everyone else was trying to play it cool, as if it'd been a given that they'd pass, but Tenten had a goofy smile on her face. "You too."

"Free from school at last."

Aoi nodded.

"No more stuck-up Hyuga or squealing fangirls," she continued with satisfaction.

This tugged Aoi's lips upwards by a fraction. "You got it."

Daichi and Aris were the last on the list, since they lacked a surname. That would change now that they were ninja - they would be given the surname Himori common to all orphans of unidentified parentage that made it to the shinobi ranks of Konoha. Ultimately the surname didn't mean anything, since none who sported it were related to one another. It was more meant as a way for their fellow ninja to identify complete unknowns that ranged from being useless to possessing random kekkei genkai. There had been a scandal with a Himori developing a Sharingan once, much to the embarrassment of the Uchiha. The name itself was (unsurprisingly) a combination of fire and forest. Aoi was pretty sure the other hidden villages had their own equivalent.

Daichi came through the door first, grinning like a devil. He walked over to the girls and clapped Aoi on the back. He was as short as a year ago but much heavier, his muscles having filled out with training, and she had to stop herself from stumbling forwards. "I passed. Aren't I awesome?"

"Sure," she deadpanned.

Daichi grinned wider.

Aris shuffled next to him, running a hand through his shaggy blonde hair nervously. He on the other hand had grown in the vertical direction, the training making him leaner instead of bulkier, his body shape more or less imitating a twig. "I wonder what our Sensei will be like."

"I wonder what my team will be like," Tenten said, putting emphasis on _team_. "At least you guys know you'll be together."

Aris frowned. "We will?"

"Well, duh, you've been doing drills together for the whole year, they're not going to split you up." She smiled. "Lucky. I on the other hand have no idea who my teammates will be. I hope I don't get Neji. Or his fangirls." She looked around the room with a shudder. Neji stood in a corner, leaning against the wall with his arms folded, while a few meters away a cluster of girls whispered among themselves and let out the occasional squeal. "It's sad that Lee didn't pass. He worked really hard."

Daichi snorted and Tenten shot him a look. "You should have been nicer to him. I've been sparring with him for the whole year and he's gotten much better." Daichi snorted again and she stepped on his foot.

He cursed and started hopping. "What's wrong with you?"

Tenten stuck out her tongue at him.

* * *

 

"C-congratulations on passing, Momoru-senpai," Hinata stuttered, blushing and looking at her toes. They were sitting on their usual bench in the market after their sparring session. That day Aoi had fought with one hand tied behind her back (and been thoroughly thrashed). The practice had been necessary, though. She remembered all too well the sound of bone snapping as she tried to twist away from Kabuto's hold, and the whole week after that when her arm was in a cast.

"Thanks."

By the way she fidgeted it was obvious Hinata wanted to say something else. Aoi looked up at the clouds and gave her ice-cream a particularly long and tasty lick.

"I-I guess since you're a n-ninja now we won't spar anymore," she finally ventured.

"Guess so."

Hinata's shoulders slumped. "Oh." There was a prolonged silence. Aoi glanced at her sideways, an unexpected pang of guilt stabbing her side. She really had no reason to pursue this friendship with Hinata. There was little more the Hyuga could teach her in terms of Gentle Fist techniques, and as a Genin her training would be much more demanding anyway - she'd have plenty of other, more competent sparring partners available. To be honest, after years of facing almost exclusively Jyuuken practitioners she was itching for a change, for an opportunity to measure up her taijutsu against other styles.

And still, there was an attachment. She acknowledged that while the girl couldn't offer her anything of use, there was no real reason to avoid her, either. Hinata wouldn't be subject to any more danger than Aoi herself would. At worst it would increase her chances of coming across Naruto, but the two of them hadn't really started interacting until their Chunin exams and that was still a year and a half away.

Not to mention Hinata wasn't frustratingly loud or annoying. She also paid for ice-cream.

On the other hand, Aoi knew that the girl would be perfectly fine without her and turn into a decent kunoichi all on her own. Perhaps that was part of the reason for her detachment, she reflected. Knowing how the people she interacted with would turn out took some of the point out of it.

"I really enjoyed our-our practices." Aoi looked up, surprised. Hinata's face was so red she could feel the heat it irradiated from where she was sitting. "I-it... I think it really helped me improve too."

"Uh huh."

"My father doesn't know I've been training," she added, managing not to stutter on that one.

Aoi nodded.

"Maybe he'll be happy to-to see I've gotten stronger."

"I'm sure he will." It had been puzzling at first that Hinata had so much free time, before Aoi remembered that the clan thought little of her and had given up on her training some time ago.

"I gu-guess I just wanted to say thank you." She tilted her head forwards further, her short hair falling to cover her face. "For spending time with me."

"No problem." She patted her hair awkwardly before jumping off the bench. "I'm going shopping. Would you like to come?"

For some reason the way Hinata's face lit up made her feel even guiltier.

Shinobi were given a number of standard kunai, shuriken and wire upon passing the Academy exam. They were also given a single, simple storage scroll for inanimate objects. They were expected to maintain their weapons in suitable condition and, if they ever wished to expand their arsenal, make the purchases on their own. It was also possible to exchange used or damaged kunai for new ones at the workshop at the back of the Hokage tower for a minuscule fee.

But Aoi didn't head to the tower, she went to the few private shops downtown. The workshop was sufficient for the regular Genin, but anything that wasn't standard gear had to be commissioned to the civilian (or retired shinobi) smiths working in private businesses. The shop they entered was one of the smallest ones, with all sorts of unusual weapons hanging from the walls, from hooks shorter than a finger to blades taller and wider than Aoi herself.

She approached the counter in her usual lazy strides, Hinata falling behind as she gaped at the walls.

"Who is- oh, Aoi-san," the woman at the counter greeted. She was maybe in her forties, short and thin, which was not the build one would expect of someone in her profession; but the small body contained a large amount of supercoiled chakra that betrayed her as ex-ninja. Her eyes shot up to the headband. "Congratulations."

Aoi gave her a blank look in return. "Is it done?"

"I've got it in the back, just a sec." The woman disappeared behind a door, with a slight limp and the clinging of metal every second step characteristic of a prosthetic. She reappeared a second later with a dark green pouch in her hands. "Here you go, your specialized medic kit. I drew sterilizing seals on the scalpels, like you asked, but the durability seals didn't work. You don't know how much trouble I went through, girl, I must have shattered at least ten of them," she added in a grumble. "You'll just have to be careful with them. The ones made of silver are on the left, the high carbon steel ones on the right, and the replacement blades are in the back pocket. The needles and thread are in the back too, don't know what you need those for, usually it's the civvie doctors asking for them. The senbon are in a separate pocket."

Aoi took the pouch and tied it around her waist so it fell over her left hip. "I'm charging you for the leather, too," the woman added with a frown.

Aoi left the amount she cited on the table and walked back out the door without another word. It was all she'd been able to save after six months of not buying a single book or scroll. She was penniless again, but she supposed that since she'd be doing missions and earning money soon it didn't matter.

"Uh, thank you, shopkeeper-san," Hinata hurriedly mumbled as she followed. Once outside, she craned her neck to look at Aoi's pouch. "You got a personalized set?"

"Yeah. The standard one is limited to battlefield uses."

Hinata wondered what _other_ use there was for a medic pouch but decided not to ask. They eventually halted when they got back to their bench. Suddenly Aoi's eyes were staring at her in all their yellow intensity and Hinata immediately looked down.

"I enjoyed sparring with you too." A pause. "See you around."

"G-goodbye." Hinata stared at her back as she walked away, a small smile gracing her lips, but sad inside because she knew they wouldn't really see each other like this again.

* * *

 

The following day everyone was surprised to see Lee sitting at his desk as usual, sporting a headband like the rest of them. Neji was the most baffled of all, though he tried to play it cool. It was obvious to Aoi that he was disappointed the Fate of being a Loser had managed to evade him. He relieved the stress by being more confrontational than usual. "I saw you cheating on the written test," he commented neutrally as Daichi, Aris and Aoi passed his desk, heading for their usual spot at the back.

Daichi stuck his pinky finger in his ear. "What are you talking about?"

Neji kept staring towards the front, and with a snort Daichi walked on.

"I told you he'd pass," Aoi couldn't resist bragging.

The Hyuga gave her a stare of calculated indifference. "He will fail sooner or later. His teammates will be very unfortunate."

She just smirked at him.

When Team Gai was announced, Neji blinked. Which in Hyuga body language meant he was about to faint from shock. "Yosh! I'll be happy to work with you, Neji-san, Tenten-chan!"

"Team Three," Mizuki barked, quieting Lee's enthusiastic speech, the outraged shouting of fangirls who were demanding to be switched for Tenten, and Tenten who was demanding the same thing. "Daichi Himori, Aris Himori, and Aoi Momoru. Your Sensei is Shikaku Nara."


	15. Arrogant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [arrogant: having an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities.]

"Fantastic. I get Scary, Skinny and Squirt." He sighed. "What a drag." Those were Shikaku Nara's first words and they gave rise to an apathetic stare, a raised eyebrow and a smug smirk respectively.

"Hey, Aoi might be a bit short, but she's not a squirt," Daichi drawled.

"He was referring to you, moron," Aoi deadpanned, at the same time as Aris said, "I think Aoi's Scary."

Daichi's face was priceless. He rounded on the Jounin, scowling. "Yeah? Well fuck you, smartass."

Shikaku's grin was roguish and with a tad too many teeth.

He wasn't a very physically imposing man himself. Rather on the short side, thin and wiry, he could have passed off as unremarkable, even with the two long scars on the right side of his face. One was an oblique line above his eyebrow and the other starting underneath his ear and climbing up to his cheekbone, in what had been a clear attempt to slash out his eye. But even though he didn't _look_ particularly threatening by shinobi standards, he exuded a kind of subtle confidence that so far Aoi had only seen in the Hokage. It didn't help that, as they walked, ninja twice as tall and four times as wide as him paused what they were doing to acknowledge him with a respectful nod.

Of all the people to be her Sensei Aoi hadn't expected Shikaku Nara, the supposed genius strategist. It was an interesting development.

"So," he said, once they'd sat down in a circle on the grass of training ground four. He'd taken them straight there, with the excuse that the school grounds were too noisy. "As you all know I'm Shikaku Nara, your new Sensei. Why don't you introduce yourselves? Your name, your goals in life, all that. You start, Scary."

Aoi had never seen the point of shallow, formulaic self-introductions but it seemed to be a _thing_ in new Genin teams, so she obliged. "My name's Aoi Momoru. I like medical books and sleeping whenever I'm tired. I dislike people who wear glasses. My goal in life is to turn eighteen."

Daichi stared at her. "That's really boring for a life goal."

Aoi shrugged and covered a yawn, pretending to be ignorant of the way Shikaku's eyes fixed on her. "Yeah, but I'm already two thirds of the way there."

"I'm Aris Himori," Aris muttered, nervously toying with a kunai. "I like pre-Konoha History and cool jutsu. I don't like thunder and lightning." Daichi cackled, apparently finding that hilarious. "Can it. My dream is to travel to all the shinobi nations. All of them, not just the five main ones."

That was decent, Aoi supposed. She'd never felt much need to travel, but it was a decent dream. Ambitious but potentially feasible, if he didn't get killed on his first few missions out of Konoha.

After a pause, Daichi breathed in. "My turn, huh? I'm Daichi Himori. I like Aoi's pizza. I also like the new apartment I got with Aris and taijutsu practice. I don't like Neji Hyuga though I think his cousin's pretty cute." Was he talking about Hinata? Aoi felt an unexpected surge of protectiveness. Daichi was a complete delinquent. He would _crush_ Hinata. "And I'm," he punctuated, staring straight at Shikaku, "going to become a Jounin and kick your ass."

Nah, Aoi decided. Daichi wasn't really Jounin material.

"Good luck with that," Shikaku declared, standing up.

"What about you? You haven't told us anything."

Shikaku looked down at Daichi. His eyes were very dark and the threatening grin was back on his face. It was the grin of a shark who knew he was the most dangerous predator in that part of the sea and the only reason he wasn't eating all the little fishies was because he found them entertaining. "I like playing Shogi and looking after deer. I dislike overconfident Genin." Daichi scowled and lowered his gaze. "My dream is to see my son get married. I'm going to test you now. Come here."

Aoi was the first to follow him to the center of the training ground, eyes half-lidded and gleaming with curiosity. The infamous Jounin test? Hopefully Shikaku Nara wouldn't use anything like bells. She was looking forwards to it; it was a challenge for the sole sake of a challenge, and Aoi had experienced a significant lack of those in her years at the Academy. He was supposed to be a genius, so this would be interesting if nothing else.

"Why do we have to take a test again? We already passed the Academy one."

"Shut up, Squirt. It's true that you're ninja already, but as far as I'm concerned you're only Genin Corps fodder." Shikaku smiled. "You're already out, so don't even bother trying. I want to see if Scary and Skinny are good enough to deserve a sensei."

Daichi glared. "Nothing's decided yet."

Shikaku drew a circle on the ground with his foot, ignoring him. "This is the enemy's base." Then without warning he appeared behind Aoi and pushed her into it. She tried to move, but found she couldn't and rolled her eyes downward. Yup. A tendril of shadow was linking her to the Nara, so thin she would have missed it if she didn't know what to look for. Her eyes moved back up, fixing on his back. "Alright, Skinny." He put his hands in his pockets. Aoi mimicked him. "Scary has been taken prisoner. Konoha med-nin are valuable, so it's bound to happen sooner or later. The mission of your team is to take her out of the circle. You have an hour."

Aris frowned. "Can't she just step out?"

"Paralyzed," Aoi drawled. Interesting, indeed. But she didn't buy for one second that Shikaku had chosen her to be the prisoner just because she was supposed to be the medic. It had been done for another reason, and the result of it was that she couldn't intervene, or help her comrades in any way - the only thing she could do was wait and trust them to do all the work. Unless she broke the shadow-binding jutsu by herself, but that wasn't going to be easy.

"Starts from now."

* * *

 

The clearing was silent, the sun beating down on the earth mercilessly. The Himoris had disappeared into the forest surrounding the training ground as soon as the exercise started, to discuss strategy out of earshot.

"Hey," Momoru said. "If we're gonna stand here in the sun for an hour, can't you at least let me take off my jacket? I'm hot."

What they didn't know was that one of Shikaku's Kage Bunshin had followed them and was listening in, to relay all their planning back to Shikaku when the exercise was over. He intended to use it to evaluate them later.

"Come on, you must be hot too. Don't you wanna get rid of all that deer skin?"

"Not really."

Momoru seemed to deflate, although she couldn't make any physical movement to accompany the feeling. Shikaku looked up at the sky and the passing clouds, wondering when they would finally decide on something.

He reflected on what he'd seen of the three Genin so far. Orochimaru's daughter wasn't much different from what her report had said - mature, self-centered, and erring on the side of arrogance. She was supposed to have excellent chakra control and a large chakra pool for her age; the ideal conditions for a ninjutsu specialist, a heavy hitter in the frontlines. Like her father, really, which was at the same time promising and worrying. Maybe her choice of a medicine specialty was a good thing. Not that Orochimaru had left that area untouched either.

She seemed to lack his ambition, though. Shikaku was on two minds about this, because survival on the field was a nice, safe goal that wouldn't require her to conduct human experiments with Konoha citizens; but he also thought it was a waste that someone with her talent wasn't aiming higher. The lack of enthusiasm had been repeatedly noted as a problem by her Academy sensei.

Though as a Nara, he sort of sympathized.

Daichi Himori was short and had the generic features of all orphans boys around his age. A wild mane of brown hair, skin darkened by the sun, tough as nails. According to his report he had some potential, but lacked the discipline necessary for ninja life. His scores were average across all areas and he seemed to have some trouble with his chakra control, though Shikaku suspected that was more due to laziness than anything else. He'd make Chunin. Hopefully. If Shikaku managed to drill obedience into him.

The last was tall and gangly, clearly on the tail end of a growth spurt. He had shaggy blonde hair and green eyes that didn't usually lift from the ground. He was quiet and serious, but his Academy results proved he had drive, even if he didn't show any particular talent. Shikaku liked him best of the three. He'd go far.

His thoughts were interrupted when Aoi started straining against the jutsu instead of passively accepting it, trying to move her arms and legs. Not that it did her any good; he put a little bit more chakra into the technique and she stayed as she was. After a while, she stopped, and sighed. "I wonder if they'll show up soon."

As if on cue, Shikaku felt another pull of chakra, this time of someone trying to use the Replacement Technique with his prisoner, ineffectively of course. Not a bad idea; it would have worked if Aoi had been paralyzed by some kind of poison instead of a jutsu. Never mind that it usually took Genin months to realize that Kawarimi could be used with a person too. Skinny's voice shouted from somewhere off to the left. "Kawarimi doesn't work! Strawberry Jam!"

"On it!" Daichi replied. He and a clone rushed into the clearing heading straight for Aoi, but before they could reach her Shikaku's shadow clone flew in and kicked them away. The boy rolled back on the grass and stood, while his clone dispelled. "Aris, dude, there's two of him."

Aris had already set off towards Aoi from the opposite direction. The shadow clone flickered in front of him and punched him across the jaw, but didn't make a move to follow through as the boy got up. "It's not just a clone..."

"No, it's solid. Somehow. It can kick." Daichi had put a fair amount of distance between himself and everyone else standing on the clearing. Aris was quick to copy, resulting into them standing on opposite sides and having to shout to talk to each other.

"That means that the real one can't move," Aris said.

"Huh?"

"If he could fight us himself he wouldn't need to make the weird ass clone fight for him. Whatever jutsu he's using to hold her still, he can't move while he's doing it."

Aoi opened her mouth to say something. Shikaku's eyes slid towards her, and in one instant his hold on her shadow tightened to include the muscles of her jaw and tongue. Aoi's eyes widened and she inhaled sharply through her nose, the sounds dying in her throat.

"Okay, then we'll just force the real one to move," Daichi grinned, and threw a shuriken in Shikaku's direction. The shadow clone flash-stepped to intercept it.

"Nice try," Shikaku's clone complimented. So far, they were doing alright, but hadn't shown him anything particularly impressive. Shikaku himself yawned and brought a hand up to cover it, forcing Aoi to do the same.

"Stupid clone!" Daichi cried in frustration. "What now?"

"We still don't know how exactly he's doing it. I go for the real one to break the jutsu." Aris's voice was calm. His hand dove into his thigh hostler and came out gripping four kunai in between his fingers, green eyes oddly intense. "You push Aoi out of the circle. If we time it right, the clone will only be able to defend one of them."

Their gazes met from across the clearing and, without any visible signal, they both took off towards their targets at top speed (which really wasn't that impressive for Genin). _Teamwork... I'll give them a six,_ Shikaku pondered as he deflected the kunai with one of his own. Coming from someone whose usual team was Ino-Shika-Cho, it was more than a decent score. _Strategy, five_. _They're on the right track but it took them a while to figure it out._

He effortlessly grabbed the punching arm and twisted, throwing the boy flat on the ground, while his clone flipped the squirt in a similar manner. Aoi moved as well, but like Shikaku her feet remained planted and unmoving inside the circle. "Sorry, but no cigar," he told the dazed Aris, before chucking him away to the side. He straightened, putting his hands in his pockets again. "I _can,_ actually, still move. You should have made sure before running straight at me like that." He looked up at the sun. "Thirty minutes left."

* * *

 

"Five minutes left," Shikaku said as he deflected yet another barrage of kunai.

By now they'd established that Aoi was mirroring his movements and all they needed to do was get him to take a step in any direction for Aoi to do the same and leave the circle. Aris had lamented their lack of explosive tags or ground-rocking Earth jutsu to make him lose his balance, and had resorted to projectiles, while Daichi kept trying to get to Aoi through the clone.

Of course Shikaku and Shikaku's clone were going easy on them, keeping their taijutsu at low-Chunin level. They limited themselves to counters, never actively pursuing the boys once the first blow had landed. Still, the Genin were exhausted, their faces battered and blue from the fight. They'd gotten up again and again after each clash, but they were running on fumes now, their exhaustion causing some of the weapons to fly way off-target. "Are you so tired you can't even aim properly?" Shikaku observed. It was a big flaw. He'd have to make them work on that.

His clone smashed Daichi into the ground again. The boy wobbled a bit, but managed to get up in time to dart to the side and catch the kunai Aris had thrown wide. "We aim...perfectly!" he declared, chucking it back across the clearing, but again it missed Shikaku by a whole two meters.

Aris caught the same kunai and that was when Shikaku spotted the glint of wire in the air, thinner than a spider thread. It had looped around him as the boys chucked the kunai it was attached to back and forth. "Now!" Aris cried, pulling on both ends of the wire. Daichi attacked the clone again, keeping its attention for long enough to stop it intervening in the maneuver.

"Yeah, that's slightly better," Shikaku complimented, jumping high in the air to avoid his legs from being trapped by the rapidly shrinking loop of wire. Aoi mimicked.

"Gotcha!" Aris yelled, jumping at him from behind. "You were using chakra as an anchor to stick your feet to the ground before, but you can't do that if you're in the air," he added grimly, before slamming right into him.

 _Make that a six for strategy_. He couldn't have Genin beating him though, could he? As they neared the ground, Shikaku twisted in mid-air to get out of Aris's grip, and used him as a platform to push off and land exactly where he'd jumped from. Aoi followed the trajectory like a puppet on strings, landing neatly inside the circle, while Aris smashed on the ground with a cry.

Daichi encountered a similar fate at the hands of the shadow clone.

Neither of them got up this time.

"Time's up," Shikaku stated, expression unreadable. "Pity. You got pretty close at the end there."

* * *

 

When Aoi felt the tendril of shadow releasing her she stepped out of the circle towards Aris. He'd hit the ground at a bad angle that last time. When she reached him and he failed to respond, she quickly ran a Diagnostic Palm to check for major injuries, but found none. Just fainted, then, more likely due to chakra exhaustion and dehydration than anything else. She healed the biggest bruises and cuts and rolled him onto his side before moving on to Daichi.

He was perfectly conscious and trying to climb onto his knees, swearing to himself. "Fucking idiot," he spat. "Hey, I can still go, you hear me?"

Shikaku didn't reply. Aoi pushed him back so he was lying down. "Shut up. It's finished." He covered his eyes with an arm as she checked him over, his chest shaking with the sobs he tried holding in.

"Shit," he gasped, then bit his lip. "S-sorry about that. We couldn't - couldn't do anything."

She glanced to his face before focusing back on her task. He was worse off than Aris, who'd mostly stuck to long-range weapons. He had torn muscles and tendons, and a few cracked ribs, which she'd never tried to heal on a human before. It cheered her up. Lee was the one usually filling the role of unsuspecting guinea pig, but she hadn't gotten to bones yet. They weren't broken, just slightly cracked, which would still be painful but not impede his movements. She wrapped her chakra around it, coaxing it into healing faster. "I'm pretty sure you haven't failed, so chill. Do the ribs still feel sore?"

"A-a bit. W-we did fail. We didn't get you out. S-sorry." Tears streaked down his face, cutting a clean path in the dirt that covered it.

Aoi didn't bother correcting him again. She'd worked out what these tests were. Genin weren't meant to fulfill the objectives given to them at the beginning, those were just an excuse so they showed what they could do. Like in Kakashi's bell test - they weren't expected to _get_ the bells, they just had to show teamwork. Daichi and Aris had done well enough to pass. What she didn't understand was her role in it, since she hadn't been allowed to do anything at all. Shikaku must be planning to test her later, separately.

It had been entertaining, at least. She'd been genuinely curious as to whether they'd be able to come up with something, whether she'd be able to rely on her teammates if a similar situation truly arose. The answer was not really, but they got points for trying.

Aris blinked back into consciousness, wobbled to a standing position and shuffled over to them, eyes downcast. "Sorry. I should have done better."

Aoi decided to extract herself from all the drama by flopping on the ground and pretending to sleep.

She tuned out Shikaku's predictable speech on where they'd gone wrong and his explanation of the Shadow Clone and Shadow Bind Jutsu, only smiling faintly when he tagged at the end, "But yeah, you pass." She also tuned out the exclamations of incredulity from the boys, but unfortunately they decided that grabbing her by the shoulders and starting to shake her was a good way to express their enthusiasm.

"Aoi, did you hear that? We passed!"

She opened her eyes halfway to glare at them. "Whoop, yay."

"Don't be sarcastic! Let's go eat pizza to celebrate!"

"Momoru has to stay," Shikaku interrupted. "I need to have a talk with her."

Daichi stared at her, then at Shikaku, then back at her. Finally, he stood up, and Aris followed. "Alright, then. See you later." They left the clearing shooting uncertain looks behind their backs.

Aoi straightened to a seated position, took off her jacket and tied it around her waist. The weather truly was hot, she didn't get how Shikaku could stand it in all that deer skin.

He sat cross legged in front of her, staring at her seriously. "What would you have done in Skinny's place?"

"I don't think asking me now is a substitute for the real thing," she observed. "After all, I've seen what has failed already, so I have less chances of answering with something that won't work." Shikaku kept staring at her, waiting. "Fine. I'd have tried to take down the clone first. It would have been two-on-one, since you'd be just as immobilized as me. And we'd only need a lucky hit in to dispel it."

"You didn't know that until I told you after the exercise," Shikaku pointed out.

"Right. I'd still have gone for the clone, it made the most sense. Or, I don't know, transform into a shuriken and have Daichi throw me at you to catch you off guard." It made her smile. Zabuza must have been rolling around in his grave. Oh, wait, he wasn't dead yet. Aoi blinked. "So, do I pass?" she asked blandly.

"What were you doing with your chakra? You manipulated it in a strange way since the beginning."

"I was trying to understand how you did it. I could tell your jutsu was mostly Yin chakra, and as a medic I use Yin chakra a lot, so." She put her hand in her pocket and almost on automatic started spinning the chakra stone she always kept there. She'd wondered what would happen if two Nara clan members were pitted against each other, whose shadow would win then. "I was trying to put my Yin chakra into my shadow, to see if that did anything to hinder the jutsu. Except I couldn't distinguish the shadow itself from the surface it was cast on, and I ended up putting all my chakra into the ground instead." There was an expression of distaste on her face. Aoi didn't like not understanding things. She didn't like failing at things. And most of all she didn't like admitting her failures to someone else. "I just ended up wasting chakra."

To her surprise, Shikaku chuckled. "You thought you could deconstruct the Nara Clan's secret techniques in an hour?"

Aoi's irritation heightened. It did sound kind of pretentious when he put it that way. "I don't suppose you'll tell me how it works?"

"Unfortunately, no." There was a pause. "You pass. You didn't really do anything, but this only works by passing as a team or failing as a team. But the real reason I wanted to talk to you was your father."

Aoi froze.

"We have reason to believe he's already tried to contact you and will try again in the near future." Already? But... Ah. Then Kabuto had been acting on behalf of Orochimaru, not Danzo.

Well, shit.

This was bad. It meant her father had his sights on her already. A trickle of fear traveled down her spine, making the hot air seem suddenly cold. Her only consolation was that Orochimaru himself probably wouldn't be able to enter the village. Probably. Oh, who was she kidding? The Sannin could slip by Konoha's walls without raising the slightest amount of suspicion, if he wanted to. Even she could do that, assuming the Root tunnels were still functional.

Aoi was years away from being able to stand up to him or anyone he sent.

Not good.

A weight fell on her head. It was Shikaku's hand. "Relax. They assigned me as your sensei for a reason. I'll keep an eye on you."

That sounded as much a threat as a reassurance. "I want nothing to do with him," Aoi assured, her mouth dry. "I'm loyal to Konoha."

He smiled and moved his hand, ruffling her hair. "That's good to know."


	16. Isolated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [isolated: 1. Having minimal contact or little in common with others. 2. Far away from other places, buildings, or people; remote.]

The month of D-ranks was uneventful.

They were every bit as boring as she'd expected. At least she got paid for them, which was reassuring since when she turned thirteen she'd have fulfilled the second condition for the withdrawal of the Orphan Trust allowance (the first being becoming a ninja. Civilians got to keep it until eighteen, the lucky bastards) and that way she at least had a thin cushion to fall back on. It wouldn't be enough to pay for even her rent, but hopefully they'd switch to C-ranks soon. They paid much better. Sometimes Aoi spotted the twenty-something-year-olds of the Genin Corps running around, herding rubbish and cleaning up training grounds, and was glad she was spared that fate.

Other than that, the missions provided some insight on the day-to-day running of the village (giving the answer to the question of who cleaned the public bathhouses, handled waste storage and disposal, and sharpened the Workshop's blunt kunai to get them back to battlefield standards) and somewhat strengthened the teamwork of Team Shikaku, with Aris always dutifully completing the tasks he was assigned before turning back to watch Shikaku _motivate_ Daichi and Aoi to do the same.

Unfortunately, pleading an episode of flu only worked for one day. The second day Shikaku kicked open the door to her apartment and caught her meditating on the ceiling, and from then on the excuse became unusable. So did Cryptosporidiosis, strep throat, and everything in the family of I-have-a-medical-condition-itis. Shikaku seemed to have lots of experience forcing lazy people to work. Aoi wasn't happy.

"I could die, you know. And it'll be your fault."

"Hmmm."

"I'm not joking. Yellow Fever is severe. And contagious. You should trust the medic."

"What does that one do?" Daichi asked, straining to pull out another weed.

"It makes you bleed from the mouth, eyes, and nose, and turns your skin yellow."

"I liked the worm that made you go blind better."

"Onchocerciasis?"

"Yeah, that one."

Due to the low incidence of disease in the Fire Country, and their non-existent contact with any serious epidemics, her team believed she was making them up. Shikaku seemed to look forwards to hearing her excuse of the day now, just for the entertainment value.

They also trained, every afternoon after their mission. Shikaku stressed the importance of teamwork. He often had them team up against him, and sometimes repeated the exercise of their test - trapping one teammate in his Shadow Bind jutsu and watching the other two come up with ways they could circumvent it. The difficulty kept increasing, with Shikaku creating more clones each time, decreasing the time limit and becoming more liberal in his use of techniques and weapons. He firmly believed that even a greatly superior enemy could be vanquished with a good strategy, and taught them to fight _smarter_. It was different from anything they'd done at the Academy and Aoi welcomed the challenge. They hadn't been able to get him yet, even three on one, but they improved every time.

"Now, Daichi!"

He grinned ferociously, charging at Shikaku with a kunai. "This is the time we get you, smartass!"

A white cloud of smoke suddenly appeared in the middle of the training ground, and something green shot out from it with an enthusiastic cry of "Greetings, Team Shikaku!" Aoi lost her concentration and fell into the water with a splash, while Daichi tripped and landed on his face, nearly impaling himself with his own kunai.

Gai shattered reality every time he entered a scene. It was like, his thing.

"Good afternoon, Gai," Shikaku replied, nonplussed. "To what do we owe your presence?"

Gai's chest inflated to prepare for his speech. "Well, my team was training youthfully in the training ground next to this one, and then I heard the sounds of your team in the middle of sparring practice! So I thought, why not have a joint sparring session? That way each team can practice their techniques on an opposing force of a similar level! What do you say?"

Gai's Genin were indeed trailing behind him, Lee smiling and waving at Aoi, Neji muttering something like "Similar level, yeah right" while Tenten just seemed tired. "Alright, it could be interesting," Shikaku agreed.

Gai's smile brightened to a painful degree while he pushed his Genin forwards with enthusiasm. He was looking forwards to this! "Make me proud, team! But no fatal injuries!"

"Don't worry, Sensei!" Lee chirped. "We'll take care of our fellow Genin!" Gai gave him a thumbs up, and Lee mimicked the pose. The green jumpsuit fit the boy nicely! Gai had been disheartened when his other two students refused to wear it, but Lee's youthful passion made up for it!

Aoi had dragged herself out of the river bisecting the training ground, clothes and hair dripping and forming a puddle at her feet. She did a double take when she saw Lee's new outfit. "N-no..." she breathed, face paling.

Tenten sighed. "Sorry, Momoru. I did everything I could."

"So, we're sparring you guys now?" Aris asked, walking closer.

"It would appear so! Let's have a good match!"

Shikaku shuunshined to stand next to Gai, watching the scene from a safe distance. "I don't want any serious injuries from you three either, got it?"

"Heh. Like they could injure us," Neji said, smirking. There was a silence in which all that could be heard was the splashing of water as Aoi wrung her clothes. Slowly she looked up, eyes fixing on him.

"Guys, I dibs Princess," she stated, lips stretching into a predatory grin.

"Gotcha. We'll take the other two." Aris spun a kunai around his finger. Tenten narrowed her eyes at him.

Gai sighed wistfully. Oh, how he missed the youthful trash-talk. His Eternal Rival Kakashi didn't bother with it anymore, and most enemy ninja never lasted quite long enough for it. Then the genin were at each others' throats, Neji rapidly engaging with Momoru while the Himoris swapped kunais and spread wide, encasing Lee and Tenten in a pincer attack.

"Your team is fast," Gai complimented.

Shikaku nodded. "So is yours."

Gai focused on Momoru, who was using a very unorthodox taijutsu style. It seemed like some bastardized version of Gentle Fist, with the same characteristic fluidity and upper body movement, but more dynamic involvement of the legs, and a wider range of moves including flips, grabs and throws. It wasn't nearly as smooth and elegant as Jyuuken, but it was more unpredictable and versatile. Gai had never seen anything like it. It put Neji on edge, too. He jumped into the fight with a fully-activated Byakugan and a clear intent to target the main chakra gates despite the warning not to seriously maim.

And yet Aoi Momoru managed to dodge or deflect almost everything he threw at her, and what she couldn't, she matched blow for blow.

Gai was impressed. Shikaku followed his line of sight, guessing at his thoughts. "She's tailored it to fit the demands of iryo-ninjutsu," he explained. "She has a jutsu that she's derived from anesthetizing techniques to disrupt sensory input to the brain. It's not as efficient as targeting the chakra system, but if she lands it on the chest or head it can stun, cause blindness or even unconsciousness. It works with only a glancing blow, too."

Gai nodded. He watched as she disengaged to race through seals for three consecutive Replacements, finally appearing at Neji's back, who had to resort to his Revolving Heaven to block her. According to the boy, the technique was still incomplete, but it did its job, knocking her away into the river. After a few seconds Aoi resurfaced and climbed on top of the water, frowning.

Meanwhile Tenten and Lee were struggling against the Himoris. Gai prided himself in his Genin's teamwork, but there was something in the way Shikaku's boys fought that made it look like they were always a step ahead. Somehow, the usually deadly combination of Lee in front and Tenten at the back didn't seem to work with those two. Aris especially had a keen grasp on the versatility of the basic jutsu, even using Kawarimi with Daichi at one point to switch opponents, and his taijutsu was decent if a bit slow.

Lee was faster, and Tenten more proficient with kunai, shuriken and wire, but by the time Shikaku decided to end the fight, they still looked more battered than their opponents.

Well! Gai decided. That was not acceptable! "Thank you for this opportunity, Team Shikaku! I have concluded we'll need to train harder!"

Tenten groaned. Neji glared at Momoru. Lee struck a pose. "Yes, Gai-sensei! I'm looking forwards to it!"

Gai smiled. Oh, how he loved his little Genin.

* * *

 

Despite everything Aoi was alone.

Sometimes, she sat down on the bench overlooking the marketplace, the same one she and Hinata used to eat ice cream at, and she looked at the people bustling around like ants in a colony, each with their own little problems and worries. Those were the moments when she felt remarkably like a stranger in a stranger's body, living a life stolen from someone else. She knew she didn't belong there. She knew she wasn't even supposed to exist, she knew exactly how the world would turn out if she didn't exist. She felt like an intruder. She should be dead.

It angered her because those thoughts had no practical application, no use whatsoever, and were more unnerving and depressing than anything else.

But she couldn't help thinking about the mystery of her current life and reality in general. Others might have been too frightened to look for an explanation, might have simply contented themselves with adapting and moving on, but Aoi was a scientist at heart and she found that attitude _weak_. She wasn't afraid of delving into philosophical conundrums and when the mood struck her it became almost inevitable.

She thought about her old world, pondered the possibilities of a meta-reality in which the past, present and future of all other realities were written and set with ink on paper and couldn't help but snort at the idea.

She couldn't deny that she was experiencing a reality that had been created in the brain of a middle-aged Japanese man. She wondered if that meant her old world, which had felt just as real to her, was too only a figment of someone else's imagination. She wondered if every one of _her_ thoughts gave birth to a new reality existing in some other dimension. Or indeed she wondered if these realities were independent of the entity that thought them, and the ideas that sprung in the mind of an author were in fact creating themselves, and truly existed on their own.

But that didn't explain how she'd _switched_.

Reincarnation was out. Dying and being born again in a different universe? Even if that was what it felt like, it was absurd. Reincarnation into a reality she already knew the future of was even more ridiculous.

Much easier to reconcile was the notion that her existence here was a coma-induced dream from the other side.

That meant there was really only one reality, the old one, and this was just an enormous fictional construct her brain had thought up to amuse itself. It was reassuring. It meant law-defying jutsu, alternate dimensions and souls did not, in fact, exist. But this brought her to a different problem, which was that if her subconscious was capable of inventing an entire fictional life in a story world from zero, who could be sure that her _old_ life wasn't also a fiction dreamed up by a higher version of herself?

At this point Aoi lost her footing and was swept up in a river of anger at the Universe, because it wasn't fair that the answers were out of her grasp, the grasp of human comprehension.

She vented out the frustration by grabbing the closest object within range, which happened to be her ice-cream wrapper, and tearing it to tiny little bits (with the aid of chakra since she was training to make chakra scalpels), but it didn't do anything to make her feel better.

When she looked up again she recognised a familiar face in the crowd. It was Hana, the civilian teacher who'd unsuccessfully tried to instill some ethics and common sense into her graduating class, and who was possibly just another of Aoi's mental constructs. Aoi watched as she bought her vegetables, smiling and laughing with the store clerk, then turned around and did a double-take when she spotted her former student sitting there.

"Aoi-chan?" she asked, walking closer. Her eyes lifted to her forehead and her smile dimmed slightly. "Oh, so you became a ninja in the end. Congratulations, I'm happy for you."

"You're a terrible liar, Hana."

Hana sighed and gestured to the bench. "Do you mind if I sit? We haven't talked for some time."

Aoi moved her head in what could be considered assent, her eyes still lost in the distance.

"So," Hana started after a long silence. "What does it feel like, to finally be a kunoichi of Konoha?" She wasn't very enthusiastic about the topic, only asking because she thought it was something Aoi would like to talk about. The girl seemed distracted, gazing off into space without really seeing anything there. This was the first time she saw her like this.

Aoi was indeed on another train of thought entirely. "What do you think about life, Hana?" Upon Hana's startled silence she added, "Sometimes I wonder if all this," she gestured vaguely in front of her, "is actually real. I wonder if I'm not really someone else stuck in a dream, waiting to wake up."

Hana struggled with words for a moment. She liked teaching and helping others. She liked giving children the answers they were looking for, or at least help them find them. But right then Aoi seemed so distant and lonely and Hana didn't know what to say. What was one supposed to answer to that? You're experiencing dissassociation with reality, snap out of it? She decided to go for the safe route of not actually answering. "A dream?"

"Yes. Sometimes I think I'm dreaming. Other times I think _I_ might be a dream." She blinked, her eyes coming back into focus, and sighed. "Never mind. It's stupid."

Hana stared at her for a while. "You'll be surprised by how common that fantasy is." Upon Aoi's startled glanced, she continued more softly. "You think you're the only thing that exists and everyone else around you is just an illusion, right? It's actually fairly normal. It's an attractive prospect because it can't be refuted." Aoi's eyes were wide with surprise, and Hana smiled to show she understood. "There's something I'd like to show you. Would you mind coming with me?"

They headed towards the Hokage mountain. Aoi didn't ask why, choosing instead to be amused by the intent look on Hana's face and her determined strides as they climbed. It took them a full hour to get to the top - Aoi could have done it in ten minutes, but it was good time by civilian standards. By the time they arrived the sun was setting, casting its orange rays on Konoha and tainting the sky purple, yellow and red.

 A fresh breeze combed through Hana's hair and made her white sundress flutter in the wind. "Look," she said, gesturing towards the landscape spreading at their feet. Aoi approached the edge of the cliff and glanced down to the buildings and the streets of Konoha, which seemed to shimmer in the twilight.

"Whether it's real or not," Hana spoke, so softly it was almost a whisper, "you're alive now. Here. That's what matters. And even if it is a dream," she added, "then you're very lucky to be dreaming something so beautiful."

Aoi nodded mutely, taking in the sight, the feel of air in her lungs and chakra pulsing through her body, and thought that maybe Hana was right.


	17. Afraid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [afraid: filled with fear or apprehension.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You are more than welcome to draw fanart or write fics of this, you don't need to ask. But do send me a link :)

Orochimaru put down his brush and folded and unfolded his fingers, frowning. The characters across the page were tilted and shaky, not at all like the smooth, clean strokes he'd been expecting. It was upsetting, to find that even after so long he still lacked control over fine motor functions. He'd hoped a younger host would accommodate him more easily, but the rejection was still there.

And he knew it would remain, if this second body was to be anything like the first. Initially, the body would adapt to tolerate the change and regain proper function with practice, but after some time, and for no reason that Orochimaru could fathom, it would start shutting itself down. It went against all his predictions - theoretically, he should be able to live out its whole lifespan, not be forced to switch after a few years. It was a major drawback which he hadn't anticipated and needed to find a solution to. As soon as possible. Losing his carefully-chosen first host body had been upsetting enough.

He'd nearly gone into a fit of rage and destroyed the Ryuchi Cave when he'd discovered he was unable to enter Sage Mode due to the discordance between the host body and his soul. Not to mention the greatly diminished amount of physical energy he could draw on, barely a fraction of what he'd been able to summon in his original body. And the boost of spiritual energy he'd expected due to absorbing someone else's soul was not there, for a reason he had yet to figure out.

Admittedly, the soul transfer itself had been a success. But it was irritating and disappointing that his decades of research had yielded such _average_ results.

The current body was that of a ten-year-old girl he'd found in one of the farmhouses dotting the countryside of Sound. He hadn't really had a choice - it was the only one he could find that was compatible in short enough notice, after a fulminant shut-down of the first body's basic functions. He'd been away from Otogakure at the time, and though he'd known it had been deteriorating he'd thought he'd still have time to make it back to pick a more appropriate container.

He supposed he should be grateful that he'd found the girl on time.

Though the fact that he would have to _train_ all over again, and even then he wouldn't be halfway up to his old standards, was enough to put him in a very bad mood.

Normally, going down into the lab and tormenting his subjects helped. Not this time. He was just as irritated when he put down the bloody scalpel as when he'd picked it up.

"What do you want, Kabuto?" The voice was high-pitched and feminine, clashing with the stark commanding tone.

Kabuto, who'd walked in some time earlier and just stood in a corner of the lab, finally stepped forwards, pushing up his glasses. "I'm sorry to interrupt, Orochimaru-sama. I'm here to submit the latest report from Konoha."

"Go on." He tore his slippery, bloody gloves off and chucked them on top of the face-up figure on the examination table. It twitched, but didn't make a sound.

"We've intercepted a second missive to Suna's Kazekage," Kabuto said. "This one was much better guarded than the first and contains all the information he has on Otogakure."

Orochimaru grinned, his lips stretching across his cheeks like a knife, pupils narrowing into vertical slits. The expression was disturbing on the young face. "And?" The plans to infiltrate Suna would have almost certainly been thwarted if Konoha's warning missives had actually gotten there. The Sandaime might have been old and stupid, but not enough to ignore the appearance of a whole new ninja village at his border, or the suspicious movements of its shinobi towards the North. Orochimaru wasn't stupid either, which was why he'd been watching the correspondence closely.

The first letter of warning to Suna had been intercepted before it even left Konoha. They'd forged a reply agreeing to the information exchange.

"They don't know much about the village," Kabuto replied dismissively. "Only what we've let out. They have no spies among us, though the letter did mention the possibility of starting to send some. What should we reply?"

Orochimaru thought about it. "Tell him that the Kazekage finds the measure prudent and will do the same thing. Anything else would sound suspicious. Leak some false information on our numbers as well." He'd write the letter himself, but his calligraphy wasn't Kage-worthy at the moment, and his subordinate was good at forging handwriting. "Anything else?"

"Yes, Orochimaru-sama. Aoi-san is leaving the village on her first C-Rank tomorrow," Kabuto added. "They're traveling to the Land of Hot Springs."

Orochimaru nodded, thoughtfully looking down at his hands. They trembled slightly against his will. He forced some chakra into the under-developed network and the trembling stopped.

"Well," he said, the grin on his face again, "I suppose it's about time she finally meets me, don't you agree?"

* * *

Shikaku waited patiently at the gate for the members of his team and his client to arrive. Their first C-Rank was supposed to be a straight-forward escort mission to the Land of Hot Springs. Their client was the Daimyo's very distant cousin who was going there to visit a friend. Peaceful and with minimal danger, since Konoha had good relations with the small village of Yugakure and they would be in friendly territory at all times.

The first to arrive was, surprisingly, Aoi. Shikaku was instantly on his guard. Aoi would never wake up earlier than she had to unless she had a good reason.

"Good morning, Sensei," she greeted, lazily striding over to stand next to him. She had a small, compact backpack on her shoulders as well as the medic pouch she'd taken to wearing at her hip. So far Shikaku had only seen her take out senbon from it.

"Good morning, Aoi," he replied agreeably. "How strange to see you up early."

She glanced at the road leading out of the city before sighing. "I'm not sure about this mission, Sensei."

"If you're worried about your father, don't be. We may be leaving Konoha but we'll still remain within friendly territory and there are guard posts along our itinerary, with patrols running frequently between them. And I'm going to be with you at all times. You're as safe as you can be."

She shot him a look. "Not to doubt your competence, Sensei, but I doubt Orochimaru of the Sannin will be deterred by that."

Of course, she was right. But it wouldn't be good for her to go out into the field believing that. Aoi Momoru had to start taking C-Ranks at one point or another and while it was a good thing to be on the lookout for danger, he couldn't have her in a constant state of paranoia every time she stepped outside the gates.

He turned and looked her in the eye. "I swore I'd keep you safe. Do you trust me?"

Aoi stared back for a long moment. They held each other's gaze without blinking. "Yes."

He relaxed and they continued waiting for the rest of their group in silence.

* * *

The Daimyo's cousin, whose name was Ken, was a snob.

Aoi had met enough of them in her old life to recognize them. Even if he hadn't been muttering about the brutish installations of the ninja village when he arrived at the gates, the way he walked and held himself gave him away. He was also tremendously late and didn't even bother apologizing. He came on foot, and with only a single servant to accompany him, which proved he wasn't particularly wealthy or important, but he still snorted when he saw the team. "I ask for an escort and this is what I get? A bunch of brats?"

Apparently it was a rule that everyone who requested an escort was an asshole.

Daichi was drawing in breath to insult him back but Shikaku clamped a hand over his mouth and smiled. "I assure you, my team is capable. I am a Jounin of Konoha anyway, so you'll be safe."

The man snorted. "Hmph. Let's get going then."

Aoi decided to walk in front since the sight of the man's electric blue hair made her wince. His servant was a younger male who was tasked with carrying his master's things on his back as well as his own, and wobbled under the weight. Fifteen minutes in Aoi heard Aris offering to help.

Daichi walked at the back with Shikaku, no doubt so the Jounin could ensure he didn't run his mouth off again. The Nara had lectured them while they waited on the importance of being professional.

To be honest Aoi was still nervous, because despite his promise she knew Shikaku wouldn't be be a match for Orochimaru. He could probably take Kabuto, but not one of the Sannin - and she was fairly certain that now that she'd left the relative safety of Konoha her father wasn't going to leave her alone. She felt vulnerable, and she didn't like it. Even when she sensed a patrol passing them through the forest on the left of the road she wasn't reassured.

Overall, the first day was relatively boring. She was roped into sharing the servant's load when Shikaku decided it would be a good endurance exercise. Ken requested for breaks frequently even though he was the only one not carrying anything. They walked along the road in formation, without coming across anything of note, until they arrived at a seemingly well-maintained inn and the blue-haired eyesore declared they were staying there for the night.

Shikaku had them inspect the place while he requested a list of the guests before deeming it safe. It was probably unnecessary, but she supposed he meant it more as another training exercise than anything else.

They stayed in the room adjacent to Ken's. "I hate that guy," Daichi snarled as he dumped his bag on one of the four beds. "His face is begging me to punch it."

Aris deposited his bag on his own bed much more calmly. "He's a client, Daichi."

"Yeah, but that doesn't give him the right to lord over us like that! I could stick a kunai in his throat in half a second!"

Shikaku glared at him. "Be professional. We're on a mission."

"That's easy for you to say! He's scared of you!"

Aoi watched the argument impassively. It was remarkable that Daichi had managed to wait until they were alone to explode. His complaints weren't baseless - Ken had been ordering the Genin around like he did his servant. Shikaku, on the other hand, he'd been almost polite to, though Aoi didn't think it was because he was afraid of him. Rather, it gave off the feeling of... Respect? She wouldn't be surprised. Shikaku was a clan head as well as a ninja after all.

She lay down on her bed as Daichi ranted.

This was going to be a long mission.

Things almost boiled over on the morning of the second day when their client off-handedly requested Daichi to hand over his water canteen, took a sip and then proceeded to spit it out and dump the entire contents of the canteen on the floor. "What is this? Why is the water warm?"

Daichi snarled. "That was all my water, you twit."

Shikaku was on him in an instant. "I apologize for my Genin's rude attitude. Excuse him."

The Daimyo's cousin gave Daichi a disdainful glare before chucking back the empty canteen and continuing forwards.

Aoi looked at Shikaku. Even if Ken was a client, she found it hard to believe that their Sensei was actually making them swallow all of this. It wasn't like he was an important political figure, he barely made the cut for minor nobility. But Shikaku wasn't doing anything. In fact, he almost seemed amused by their client's antics and Daichi's growing frustration.

She supposed it was one of those things that would be too _troublesome_ for him to actively try to fix.

That night there was no inn nearby so they set up camp on a clearing on the side of the road. Ken's tent, which was the main reason his servant had trouble carrying so much weight, was probably big enough to fit all of them comfortably, but the ninja and the servant slept directly on the forest floor. Daichi didn't miss the opportunity to complain. Again. Shikaku sent him to set traps around the perimeter so they wouldn't have to listen to him.

She had first watch, so she sat against a tree while the others settled down to sleep, spinning her chakra stone in one hand. Soon she heard nothing but Aris's restless shifting and the snores coming from inside the tent.

The darkness descended like a blanket until it was almost oppressive. A twig snapped ominously. Aoi swallowed and concentrated on the chakra stone, trying to not let it get to her. She could tell there were no other chakra signatures nearby apart from her group's.

But there was something in knowing that she was currently the only person awake and the only one on the lookout for danger that unnerved her. What if Orochimaru showed up now? She didn't think the traps would actually hinder him for longer than a millisecond.

Aoi didn't like being a target. She didn't like being a fucking Sannin's target. She suddenly felt weak and foolish. She felt like she hadn't been taking her situation seriously enough.

 _If Orochimaru doesn't show up tonight I'll ask Shikaku for an elemental jutsu tomorrow,_ she thought, looking up at the strip of sky visible through the leaves. It was the closest thing to a prayer a self-proclaimed atheist like Aoi could allow herself. But the fear remained, which was ridiculous, it wasn't like there was that much of a difference between sleeping in the forest and the inn, or Konoha for that matter. If her father set his mind to it, he'd be able to find her anywhere.

Perhaps it was that her helplessness only really hit her now, with the night pressing around her like a prison.

She heard steps moving closer and jumped up, senbon in hand and heart rate thundering in her ears. It was only Shikaku. Still she didn't seem to be able to relax, having to swallow past a lump in her throat before forcing herself to put her weapon away.

"Calm down," he said, breaking the silence. His face was cast in darkness, the shadows distorting his expression. Aoi forcibly shook her body out of its stiffness and slid down the tree to resume her previous sitting position, and Shikaku joined her. "Aoi, I was serious. You can trust me." When she didn't reply, he added, "I'll let you in on something about the shadow-binding jutsu."

She cocked her head, interested.

"First, tell me what you think its major limitation is."

Aoi had sparred against him so many times she didn't even have to think about it. "You can't increase your shadow's area, meaning your range is limited. Unless you use natural shadows."

Shikaku nodded. "But both my shadow's area and the area of natural shadows increase as the sun goes down."

"Yes," Aoi acknowledged, wondering what he was getting at.

He grinned, teeth white and sharp in the darkness. "What do you think happens at night, when there's no sun at all?"

Aoi stared at him, baffled, then automatically her eyes rested on the ground. She couldn't distinguish his standard issue pants from the earth, let alone his shadow.

"The moon does create some light, but it doesn't reach through the leaves," Shikaku explained, patting the ground besides him. "Right now, this entire forest is my shadow. I can sense, immobilize and kill anything that sets foot in it."

Her eyes widened. Shikaku continued grinning.

"I guess crossing a Nara at night isn't a very good idea," she finally ventured. Suddenly, the shadow-binding jutsu seemed much more threatening than it did during their midday spars.

"No," her Sensei replied, satisfied, "it really isn't. Your watch's over," he added after a while. "Go back to sleep."


	18. Helpless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Helpless: 1. Unable to defend oneself; powerless or incompetent. 2. Lacking support or protection.]

 

The next morning the sky was blue and devoid of clouds. They packed up camp quickly while Ken sat around having a too-large portion of breakfast and calmly informed them that if they broke any of his things he'd make them pay for it. The ninja mostly ignored him, and soon they were on their way.

It turned out asking Shikaku for an elemental jutsu was unnecessary. As soon as they started walking he sent Daichi to the front of their procession and asked Aris and Aoi to join him at the back. He rummaged in his pockets for a while before getting out two pieces of paper and handing one to each of them. "Channel some chakra into that paper. It'll tell you your elemental affinity."

Aris's eyes widened. "We're learning elemental jutsu?" He immediately took the paper with something akin to greed, but paused before sending chakra into it. "What about Daichi?"

Shikaku glanced towards the front and lowered his voice so the fourth member of their squad couldn't hear them. "To be honest, I was waiting for him to catch up, but it's obvious he won't be ready to learn something like this for a while. So for the moment, I'm only teaching it to you two. It makes no sense to hold you back any longer."

Aris looked hesitant, then steeled himself and nodded. He swiped his blonde hair aside with one hand while making a seal of confrontation with the other one, holding the paper between his index and middle fingers. It smoked for an instant before bursting into a flame with a whoosh. "I'm fire."

"It's the most common in Konoha," Shikaku agreed. As an orphan of unknown parentage, it was the likeliest outcome for him. "Your turn, Aoi."

Chakra natures, as far as Aoi knew, were a way of describing how an individual's chakra tended to behave. It didn't mean the chakra was water itself, or fire, but that it had innate characteristics that meant transforming it into the element it was named after was easier. She'd read that fire-natured chakra tended to warm up when left unchecked outside the body, and earth-natured chakra tended to sink towards the ground, while wind-natured chakra thinned out and dispersed and water-natured chakra molded around its surroundings. Lightning-natured chakra was supposed to vibrate slightly before dispersing.

Nature transformation consisted in simply enhancing these properties and turning the chakra into the element itself through a jutsu.

The paper crinkled. "Lightning."

Unbeknown to her, Ken glanced back and rested his eyes on her for a second before turning to the front again.

"Hmmm." Shikaku scratched his goatee. "That's the rarest in the Land of Fire."

"Are chakra natures genetic?" Aoi asked.

"Yes, but not always."

She scowled. "That doesn't make any sense. Either they have a genetic component or they don't."

Shikaku shrugged. "Most of the time natures are inherited, but sometimes they aren't. I know a water-natured ninja born of fire-natured parents."

Aoi liked problems, and that was an interesting problem. She resolved that the heritability of chakra natures would be the subject of her next study. Obviously, if it was genetic, the pattern of inheritance wasn't going to be Mendelian straight-forward. Wait, it could be... If each allele had a different level of dominance. Supposing the allele for Lightning was the least dominant, a person would need a lightning/lightning genotype to have that nature. But a water/lightning would be water, and a wind/lightning would be wind. Someone with a water/wind genotype would be whichever allele was higher on the dominance scale.

That would explain Shikaku's water-natured shinobi. If fire was higher than water in the scale, it would mean that the parents had been fire/water, and therefore fire-natured, and the child had inherited a water allele from the father and another from the mother, making him water/water (or water/anything-except-fire, if water was second on the dominance scale and one of the parents was fire/anything-except-fire).

But it didn't really fit. According to that theory, there should be different proportions of each nature in the overall population and she doubted a case study would prove those proportions right. Though they varied between the countries, she was under the impression that overall they were more or less even. Well, she didn't actually know... She quickly drew up a table in her mind. "Shikaku, would you say that overall the incidence of lightning nature is about one in twenty-five?"

Shikaku stared at her and Aoi realized that she'd interrupted something he was saying. "Sorry," she muttered, blushing.

Her Sensei looked mildly contrite but answered. "No. It's rare, but not that rare, at least not in the other countries and certainly not in Kumo."

Well. So much for that. It was either more complicated than a single gene inheritance or dependent on the environment, rather than genetics. Which was possible, but it didn't explain how Aoi, who had grown up in virtually the same environment as Aris, had ended up with a different nature.

"As I was saying," Shikaku continued, eyeing her (Aoi had the decency to blush again), "I don't know any lightning-based jutsu, so you'll have to learn them from someone else. I do know quite a few fire-based ones for you, Aris. In fact, I'm going to teach you one right now."

Aris smiled with anticipation as Shikaku slowed, putting more distance between themselves and the rest of the party. The Nara looked around and motioned with his hand so they'd give him enough space, and the Genin jogged backwards obediently. Elemental jutsu were always amazing to see, but getting burned by one wouldn't be fun.

A blinding explosion of flames and intense heat flashed through her mind.

No, not fun. Aoi took another step back.

Shikaku nodded and did two quick hand signs too fast for them to see.

"Fingerspark jutsu!" he said, lifting his left index finger into the air. A small flame burst from the tip, much like the small flame of a lighter, burning for a few seconds before disappearing.

Shikaku took in the woefully underwhelmed expressions of his two students and grinned. "What? You didn't like it?"

"That was impressive," Aoi deadpanned.

"I can't wait to learn such a destructive and powerful jutsu," Aris echoed in the same tone.

Shikaku grinned wider. "You're underestimating it. It's great for lighting cigarettes."

Aoi quickened the pace to return to the head of the group while Shikaku gave instructions to an unenthusiastic (and non-smoking) Aris, who grimaced before nodding and working his fingers through the two hand signs.

* * *

Aris swore at his finger. He'd thought it would be incredibly easy to learn such a weak jutsu (D-Rank, according to Shikaku) but the damn thing wouldn't spark up. The Nara had explained to him how to make his chakra more fire-like but it wasn't working.

Aris continued working on it for the entire day while he walked, earning himself confused glances from Daichi which quickly turned into a mocking announcement that Aris had finally lost it and was starting to hold conversations with his finger. He ignored him as he always did when Daichi was being annoying and immature, which was most of the time.

He only stopped when they arrived that afternoon at the Fire-Hot Springs border. Shikaku exchanged codes and scrolls with the two bored Chunin guarding the outpost. Aris looked around with interest - this was, after all, the first time he set foot in a foreign country, and he was sort of nervous even if he'd never admit it out loud.

The topography of the Land of Hot Springs was fairly similar to that of his homeland, though the forests were less lush and the cliffs more bare. He learned through Shikaku that the hidden village of Yugakure had in fact stopped being a hidden village some time ago, since the country had been at peace with its neighbors for decades and there was no need for an organized military. It was now The Village That Had Forgotten Wars, a beautiful name in Aris's opinion. The land was prosperous, traditional in its customs but surprisingly rich in commerce and tourism. He could see why Ken had decided to visit.

They stopped for the night in the hotel of a small, unnamed village which, to his delight, was also an onsen. He soaked in the hot water for hours, grateful to be able to wash off all the dirt and grime from the road. He also took the opportunity to write an entry in his small green journal, complete with illustrations of the countryside and his impressions on the locals, being careful not to let it get wet. When he was done he left the book on a dry rock and sank deeper into the water, sighing blissfully.

"Hey," Daichi whispered conspirationally, "let's peek."

Aris closed his eyes. "No."

"Come on, aren't you curious?"

He opened one eye, surprised. "About Aoi?"

There was a stunned silence.

"No!" Daichi hissed. "Gah! I meant actual women." He tugged on his hair in distress. "Dude, it's not like they're gonna know. Let's do it."

"No."

"Sissy."

Aris watched as his friend made his way to the wooden wall that separated the women's baths from the men's and wedged his finger into a crack to widen it, then stuck his eye in front of it. Almost immediately he yelped in a high pitch and ducked. A senbon came flying through the hole he'd made, falling into the water near Aris with a minute _splish_ sound.

There was a silence.

"Missed!" Daichi yelled smugly. A second senbon pierced the wall below the hole, pricking him in the arm. He yelped again and scrambled away, rubbing his arm and splashing water everywhere. "She's fucking crazy!" he hissed. "Who the hell takes senbon into the baths?"

Aris laughed. "You're an idiot."

* * *

The stretch of road to Yugakure was much better-maintained than the dusty roads in the Land of Fire. It was paved with smooth, flat stones, so perfectly meshed together that you almost couldn't see the gaps in between. It was also much busier, with merchant carts and parties of travelers passing them every so often (since Ken kept insisting on going slowly and taking breaks). Aris abandoned his practice of the fingerspark jutsu for the moment to pay closer attention to his surroundings, since more people usually meant more danger, even if none of them looked particularly threatening.

Yugakure had no protective walls to speak of. The fact that no guards kept tabs on who entered or left spoke more about the wealth and prosperity of the place than the neatly-paved roads or the unusual friendliness of the merchants. Their ninja get-up did warrant them second looks from the population but no one acted in a particularly hostile or fearful manner.

Ken became more bossy by the second. Upon entering the village he declared he was leaving to a "decent restaurant for once and not that funghi-infested crap they serve in Konoha. And one of you will come and guard me!" He added imperiously.

Shikaku looked at Aris, who was scowling at his finger, at Daichi, who had gravitated towards a cluster of local girls, and at Aoi, who stared back at him apathetically. He gestured bleakly to her. "There is a secondary diplomatic mission I have to take care of while we're here," he explained. "We'll assemble when I'm done."

Aoi's expression didn't change. "I thought our mission ended once we arrived to Yugakure." It was really just a way of asking whether it was wise for her to set off with their client alone. There had been no signs of Orochimaru so far, so it made her feel silly, but she would rather be embarrassed than dead. Shikaku returned her look with insistence and maybe some exasperation and Aoi decided he'd already determined there was little risk. And maybe he was right. If Orochimaru hadn't assaulted her during the trip, why would he do it now, in a city full of people?

"I'm not paying you to question my decisions," Ken replied dismissively. "Well? Are you coming?" Aoi held Shikaku's gaze for a second longer, then turned around and followed without a word.

The gourmet restaurant was famous for its view over the village as much as its food, apparently. It was on the top of a small hill overlooking Yugakure, covered in the same not-quite-Konoha-tall-trees that populated the rest of the country. The path leading up to it was just as clean cut as all the others she'd seen, though significantly less traveled as the restaurant was the only thing atop the hill. They only crossed paths with one other person who ducked their head and didn't look at them, walking so fast it almost seemed like they were running away.

Ken's servant, whose name Aoi hadn't even bothered to learn, had fallen behind during the climb, burdened by his load.

That meant that the Genin and her obscenely blue-haired client were alone when Aoi spotted two figures ahead, blocking the middle of the path.

Her stomach dropped like a stone.

 _No_.

She recognized them both immediately. The first wore plain, nondescript clothing, had long grey hair tied back in a ponytail, and glasses that reflected the sunlight. The second was taller, dressed in a beige tunic with a purple sash. His skin was deathly pale and even from this distance Aoi could sense the snake-like eyes fixed on her with bone-chilling, hair-rising intensity.

_Holy fucking shit. I jinxed it.  
_

_Shikaku, I have to get to Shikaku_ \- but as she turned she felt the whoosh of air passing her and Kabuto was in front of her, blocking her escape. She barely registered Ken jumping in her periphery - right now the egotistical man was the last thing on her mind. She didn't even realize that, if she tried to flee, she would be leaving him unprotected in front of criminals who could kill him in less time than it took to blink, effectively abandoning her mission.

Though she knew escape was unrealistic. She spiked her chakra like she would to free herself from a genjutsu, hoping it would catch Shikaku's attention wherever he was, though in a village with as many people as this one it was quite unlikely. Daichi and Aris had gone off each on their own way a while ago; they wouldn't have sensed it either, and they would just be walking corpses in front of the Sannin anyway.

She was trapped. Kabuto was a Jounin-level ninja, and Orochimaru's gaze penetrated her back, making her skin crawl. Here she was at the complete mercy of two men that had plans likely involving the shortening of her lifespan if not her immediate death. There was nothing she could do, short of stalling the inevitable. Aoi sighed, forcing herself to calm down, and looked up at the sky.

She couldn't honestly say she was surprised by it. She'd been waiting for this for six years, since the Hokage had told her her father's identity.

There was a moment of complete stillness and then Kabuto was on her in a fraction of a second, targeting her head, no doubt aiming to knock her unconscious right off the bat. She bent backwards to avoid the swing, and they engaged in a bout of brutal taijutsu in which she focused on keeping him from reaching any vital points. She _was_ able to do it, and that surprised her. Maybe his taijutsu wasn't as strong as his other skills, or maybe she'd gotten better, but the gap between them certainly wasn't as wide as the last time they fought. Aoi didn't let herself lose ground, since every step backwards would mean a step closer to Orochimaru, and just his aura scared her more than the medic's lethal chakra scalpels.

Aoi's own hands were coated in her numbing jutsu. She fed it more chakra than she usually did when sparring, aiming for paralysis as well as loss of sensation. Kabuto was faster than her, but not faster than Shikaku, and Aoi's mind started racing for some way she could use their surroundings to her advantage, the uncountable fights with her sensei having conditioned her to quickly search for alternative ways to beat a superior opponent. She had ninja wire, senbon and standard explosive tags, which in the right combination could give her a significant advantage even if Kabuto was the better ninja.

"Enough."

It was just a word, but both Aoi and Kabuto froze. The hairs on the back of her neck rose with dread and cold sweat coated her forehead as the Sannin's steps, deliberately loud, stopped right behind her. Aoi's body turned slowly, completely against her will, and then she was staring at his face.

Orochimaru's eyes were the same chilling yellow shade as her own, though more elongated and malevolent. His cheeks were hollow and his skin stretched thinly over them like a piece of fabric or a mask. The aura he gave off was so oppressive with raw power that it constricted her throat, making her unable to breathe in the fear that the simple act of drawing in air would result in her head rolling on the ground.

On the back of her mind she noted that his appearance was that of his original body. It was most likely a transformation; she was sure he'd already started switching by now. "Orochimaru," she greeted when she couldn't bear the silence any longer. Her throat was dry and it came out as a hoarse whisper.

Orochimaru's smile thinned. "I've wanted to meet you for a while, Aoi-san... If that's even your name. How do you like the body I gave you?"

Errr... _What?_

 _The body he._.. As she stared, wide-eyed, into his slitted pupils, the meaning of his words hit her like a truck. The body he gave her. If any other man had said that to any other child it could have been taken as a strange affirmation of parentage. But Aoi realized with dawning horror that Orochimaru's favorite jutsu were basically a forbidden technique that _revived dead people_ and another that _transferred a soul into a different body_. And by the amused glint in his eyes Aoi understood that he meant something else _entirely_.

No. Way. Her mind refused to move forwards. She didn't want to even think it. No way.

Her lack of reaction seemed to displease him and he made a hissing sound. "You've been interesting to watch, but the results for this particular experiment are long overdue. I'm afraid we have some tests to run." A snake slithered from his sleeve and started moving towards her, scales wet and slimy and as white as its master's skin. Aoi was too shocked to move. The snake opened its jaws, revealing two fangs longer than her hand and a pale, pink tongue that twisted its way towards her.

* * *

Something grabbed her jacket and pulled her back and suddenly, she was standing a few yards away, and a person was standing in front of her, blocking her view. She glanced up to a mop of blue hair. "Stay behind me," Ken instructed. He spoke in a completely different manner than he had during their trip. His tone was laced with steel, lacking all its superfluous whinyness from before, and Aoi's spine straightened to attention. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed his servant, who had finally caught up to them. He'd dropped his load and had his knees bent in a fighting stance. One of his hands came up in front of his chest and formed a half-tiger seal for gathering chakra.

 _Is he doing a handseal? A ninja? But how?_ Everything had happened so fast she had no time to make sense of it. She could only watch in confusion as the servant went up into a puff of smoke and, when it cleared, a uniformed Konoha ANBU operative with the traditional porcelain mask stood in his place. Slowly she turned her head back towards Ken, who now wore the same grey vest and standard-issue dark pants, and whose hair was no longer blue. It was a spiky silver.

From the trees on either side of the path jumped three more ANBU that stared at the Sannin impassively. Orochimaru seemed as surprised as she was, his eyes narrowing dangerously. Kabuto quickly shuunshined to his side to face the new threat, kunai out and ready to strike.

"Orochimaru of the Sannin," a voice said from behind her. Startled, Aoi turned. Shikaku was standing there in his casual slouch, his hands in his pockets as usual. His gaze was focused on the missing-nin, dark and intent; he didn't even glance at her.

His voice rang out in the otherwise silent scene. "I'm executing you for treason."

All at once, the ANBU attacked.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A.N: Yuuuuuuuuuup. I don't think many people saw that one (or two) coming.
> 
> Forgive the scientific mumbo-jumbo in the first part. If you've never taken biology, here's a quick genetics crash course. It really isn't complicated:
> 
> 1) A person has two copies of a gene: one you get from your mother and one you get from your father.
> 
> 2) An allele is the "version" a gene can take in the population. For example, flies have a gene for "wing length". This gene has two versions, "short" and "long". Here, Aoi theorizes that the gene for "chakra nature" has five alleles, "Fire", "Water", "Earth", "Wind," and "Lightning."
> 
> 3) However, you only get two alleles out of those five (see 1)). Of those two, one shows dominance over the other, meaning you can carry the allele for "Lightning" but don't know about it because your other allele, let's say "Water", is more dominant and therefore is the one that is expressed.
> 
> 4) By drawing a table called Punnett Square you can work out the possible combinations of all the alleles, and if you know their dominance, work out the different chakra natures each combination will give you.
> 
> 5) This is called Mendelian genetics and is the simplest form of genetic inheritance. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the kind of inheritance that determines things like your hair or eye color (that is much more complicated). It does apply to ABO blood groups, for example.
> 
> 6)And this is all irrelevant because we will not see Mendelian genetics again.


	19. Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [lost: Unable to find one's way; not knowing one's whereabouts.]

 

Hound's squad was the most competent assassination team in ANBU. Regular ninja didn't know that, because regular ninja knowing about ANBU's affairs sort of defeated the point, but in the black ops world they were renowned as ruthless, discrete, and with a one hundred percent success rate. They were a search and destroy team specializing in hunting missing-nin and they were _good_ at that job. They had faced off against S-class opponents several times before and even then managed to come out victorious.

It was in part due to the members' experience - they had been working together for longer than some of their comrades had been in ANBU. It was also due to the fact that Hound was an excellent captain and drilled the agents under his command mercilessly until he was reasonably sure that they wouldn't die on him at the first opportunity.

So, while this time the enemy they were facing was probably a cut above their regular targets, they moved quickly and with perfect coordination, seamlessly falling into a formation polished over the years for this very purpose. Like a well-oiled machine, they adjusted to any movement or change in the battlefield instantly and with extraordinary precision. Without a single hand sign for communication they maneuvered to separate their two opponents. Fox and Lizard broke off to deal with the lesser threat, while himself, Hawk and Cat engaged Orochimaru in a flurry of explosions of wood and lightning, and Hawk's peculiar brand of genjutsu that affected the inner ear and balance.

When he had fought Orochimaru the first time, some seven or eight years ago, Hound had been an overconfident teenager with something to prove. Now he had no ambition to get in the way, no emotions and no ridiculous attachment to his own life that would let the killing intent in the air hinder his movements. He was only a tool now. Only a soldier.

He lost his balance when the Sannin slammed his hands on the ground, creating a rolling earthquake that uprooted a few trees, but recovered quickly and threw three kunai, two of which sunk in Orochimaru's arm while he was too preoccupied avoiding Cat's wooden beams that sprouted from the ground and tried to cage him in.

As he dodged, Orochimaru swiped a finger through his wounds, smearing blood on his hands, and flew through a series of handseals. _I. Inu._ Hound's sharingan predicted the rest of the sequence by the flexion of his muscles alone and he lunged forwards - _Tori_ \- blade unsheathed - _Saru_ \- and reached him in time to stop the last seal by swinging down and forcing the Sannin to move or be cut in half. The flurry of taijutsu that followed cost him a few broken ribs, but better that than to have to deal with a bloodthirsty colossal serpent on the battlefield.

Cat sent a dozen winding branches to circle the Sannin, distracting him so Hound could jump out of range and recover. Hawk contributed a volley of water bullets.

It was a tough battle, but the Sannin seemed slower, somehow less powerful than Hound remembered. They were steadily gaining the upper hand.

* * *

Shikaku glanced at the girl standing next to him, watching the battle through half-lidded eyes. Her thoughts were impossible to read but her muscles were tense, betraying her anger. "Stay here," he instructed, just in case. "Let the ANBU do their job." There was a reason why he'd chosen Kakashi's team. They were stealthy enough to avoid detection until the last moment; they also had a perfect mechanic, and anyone intervening in the fight, be it a Genin or himself, would only hinder them.

"I have every intention to," Aoi replied, deceptively calm.

Shikaku sighed. He supposed she had a right to be pissed off.

While he kept an eye on the high-speed battle going on, he analyzed the information he'd gained from the encounter. He'd ordered the ANBU to avoid intervening straightaway because he had to make absolutely sure that Aoi Momoru was not, in fact, Orochimaru's spy. He'd grown attached to his little Genin and the possibility that he might have to kill her had been sad, but with this, at least, he could be certain Aoi wasn't a traitor.

But the other thing he'd learned was almost more interesting. _He experimented with his daughter's body. Did he give her Mokuton? Unlikely, she'd have manifested it by now. The way she reacted suggests she knew what he was referring to._ Aoi was still pale, and her hands were jammed so deep in her pockets Shikaku suspected she was trying to keep them from trembling. _Whatever it is, it's shaken her. Understandably._ _  
_

He drew his attention away from the main fight for a moment to focus on the glasses-wearing ninja facing off against the remaining two ANBU. Shikaku had never seen him before, but he wore a Konoha headband, marking _him_ as the traitor. It looked like he was being pushed back, but the blows the ANBU landed didn't seem to be very effective. Watching his movements closely, Shikaku understood why. "He's a medic-nin," he observed. "Do you know what he's doing?"

Aoi took some time to answer, long enough for the Jounin to realize that she was much angrier than he'd thought. "He's using a healing technique on himself. It's faster and more effective than regular medical ninjutsu, though it's not instant regeneration. A fatal blow will bring him down." Her voice was without inflection.

"Don't give it away, Aoi-chan," the medic-nin in question called playfully, recovering after another kick. "After all, it was your idea."

Aoi's face remained neutral.

Everything came to a standstill when there was a flash of steel and white lightning, and Orochimaru's head fell on the ground with a loud thump.

Shikaku's eyes darkened as they darted to the spot where his body still stood, and the dog-masked ANBU behind it in the process of completing a swing, the tanto in his hand dark with blood.

The head started rolling down the hill towards Shikaku and Aoi, becoming tangled in its own black hair.

Then the body collapsed into a mass of writhing snakes that threw themselves at the ANBU. He yelped in pain and fell backwards as the snakes overwhelmed him, covering and constricting his body, biting and tearing into flesh.

His team reacted instantly. One threw a fireball in his direction which caught the snakes and lit them up in a bonfire. A second later another chucked in a water jutsu that extinguished the flames before the human under them got burnt too, though the body that was left under the charred remains of the reptiles was mangled and bloody and barely even seemed human.

Shikaku swore. He clamped down on Aoi's arm and shuunshined them over. He practically threw her at the body before turning back to the battlefield, eyes fixed on the head that was still rolling down the hill.

It stopped rolling and from its mouth emerged a full-bodied Orochimaru, clothes and skin covered in saliva. There was no trace of any of the wounds he'd sustained during the fight or any signs of blood anywhere.

No one made a move to engage as the Sannin stared back at him with interest. "I truly wasn't expecting this, Shikaku. You've gotten better."

He was going to flee, Shikaku realized. Orochimaru was at a disadvantage and he was going to flee. If he filled in for Kakashi and took the remaining ANBU with him, they could capture him, but... He glanced to his student, kneeling helplessly next to the convulsing body on the ground, and then at the glasses-wearing spy further down the road.

Shikaku made a decision.

* * *

The snakes had bitten him everywhere, tearing his skin from the muscle underneath, turning him into a broken and bloody mess. His ANBU mask had shattered in the attack and mismatched eyes stared at Aoi in pain and shock, tortured gasps escaping his lips with every convulsion of his body.

The only thing she could think of was that Kakashi _couldn't_ die here. He was supposed to become Team Seven's sensei sometime in the next year. It made no _sense_.

She knelt next to him and ran her hands over him, assessing the damage with chakra. He had burns but they were unimportant compared to the state of the rest of his body. His ribs were crushed, collapsed into his chest, and an elongated object - a fang? - punctured his trachea through the cartilage. He was losing blood at an alarming rate, his entire body drenched in it as it oozed out from his wounds.

The poison in his system would probably kill him first. It was destroying his organs from the inside.

She couldn't help him. No single medic-nin could, except perhaps Tsunade.

Still she started repairing vessels and tissues with single-minded focus, even as they broke down again, ignoring everything that went on outside her little bubble. It was hopeless, she knew, but a part of her that she'd thought long dead had suddenly resurfaced and overtaken her actions. She felt like a stranger staring at the scene from outside, staring at her own arms already drenched in blood to the elbow.

She continued even as Kakashi's convulsions started growing weaker, he exhaled one last time and his eyes acquired a glassy, distant look.

"Keep going," a voice said, breaking her concentration. "I'll take care of the poison."

Aoi's head whipped up to see Kabuto kneeling on Kakashi's other side, reaching into his pouch. Any disgust or fury she would have felt towards him was eclipsed by her shock. She looked up to find the four remaining ANBU and Shikaku looming over them. What had happened to Orochimaru? Had he fled?

Kabuto jammed a syringe into Kakashi's arm, then ran his hands over it and moved up to his chest, frowning. "His heart's stopped. The antidote isn't going anywhere. It has to get beating again."

"A fang's punctured his trachea," Aoi informed. "It's getting flooded with blood. We have to fix that first."

"Your chakra scalpels?" Kabuto asked.

Aoi shook her head. "Not good enough yet."

He nodded. "I'll extract the fang. You seal up the tissue and pull the blood out through his mouth."

They set to work. Kakashi was already dead, but there was a small window of time, a possibility to revive him. When the trachea was fixed she molded her chakra around his heart and squished, forcing it to contract. She let it refill, and did it again. Again. She barely realized she was sweating and panting from chakra exhaustion. Meanwhile, Kabuto kept running diagnostics and stimulating Kakashi's chakra system.

After an eternity Kakashi's heart fluttered by itself under the hold of her chakra. His body jerked several times before a low, strained sound escaped his lips.

Aoi lifted her trembling hands and leaned back, exhausted.

* * *

"So, let me get this straight," Daichi said, frowning. "Our escort mission was just a cover so Shikaku-sensei could capture this Orochimaru?"

"Yes," Aoi replied with the weariness of someone who'd told the story many times already. Her eyes bored through the window. It was raining in the Land of Hot Springs, the constant drumming of heavy raindrops muting the sounds from the street. In contrast, their hotel room was warm, almost unbearably so.

 _They used me as bait_ , she added silently. Honestly, she was disappointed in herself for not having spotted it sooner. It had been obvious for years that Konoha only saw her as a disposable pawn. And of course Shikaku was involved in it, hell, he'd probably been the one to suggest it. Orochimaru, Danzo, the Sandaime... What had deluded her into thinking that he was any different?

It made her want to laugh. She should have been used to the taste of betrayal by now. Instead, she smiled bitterly, eyes sharp as they followed the path of a raindrop sliding down the window.

"But the guy managed to flee," Aris supplied, not looking up from the diary he was writing in, "and they captured his spy instead. The ANBU took him back to Konoha."

Apparently, at that critical point in the fight Shikaku chosen to ensure Kabuto's capture over impeding Orochimaru's escape, since he'd realized the medic was the only chance Kakashi had of surviving. Kabuto was currently being escorted back to Konoha by reinforcements that had arrived a few hours ago, who were also taking Kakashi back for treatment. Some members of the original ANBU team were still lurking around in case Orochimaru reappeared.

Aoi thought that was unlikely. He was probably miles away by now.

But this event had been enlightening in a number of ways.

She'd saved Kakashi. She hadn't even thought about it - she'd just done it. And this feeling was familiar, the feeling that came with knowing that it was only because of her own actions that another human being was still alive. She'd thought she'd outgrown it. She didn't want to acknowledge it, she didn't want to care, but it was there, just as intense and filling as she remembered it, even when she told herself that Kakashi was just a character that didn't actually exist.

Except she wasn't sure anymore, was she? Was it actually possible that Orochimaru had implanted a dead soul into the body of his unborn daughter? Had Nana Momoru been another of his test subjects? Maybe, just maybe, this was real, maybe it wasn't just a construct of her mind. If somehow the reality of Naruto truly existed, then a mistake or a combination of Orochimaru's reviving and soul-transferring jutsu could explain her 'reincarnation'...

There was still a huge but. Aoi knew the way this world was supposed to go. Even if she was blurry on a few details, she effectively knew the future. Sasuke would kill Itachi, Orochimaru would die too, and Kabuto would resurrect them all to turn them against the living. Shikaku, her own sensei, was a dead man walking, his destiny already decided in the Fourth Shinobi War. So was Neji Hyuga.

Aoi had convinced herself she didn't care about anything that would happen in the timeline except to avoid becoming tangled in it - she'd been focused on surviving, on staying away, thinking that it was set in stone and any effort to interfere would be unsuccessful or result in her own death. Until the recent encounter with Orochimaru the only thing she'd tried to change was Lee's jumpsuit, and that hadn't worked. But this. This was major. With Kabuto captured, something was bound to change - it could be just a minor modification in the Rookie Nine's Chuunin exams or...

...Or without even trying to or being aware of it, Aoi had prevented the Fourth Shinobi War.

She put a hand over her mouth to hold back the wave of nausea that climbed up her throat.

"Aoi? Are you alright?" Aris asked, looking up from his notebook.

 _No,_ she wanted to say. _No, I hold power over this entire universe just by being here and knowing what's going to happen. I changed it. This is wrong._

Someone like her shouldn't exist.


	20. Bitter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [bitter: 1. Having a strong or unpleasant flavor that is the opposite of sweet. 2. Marked by cynicism and rancor. 3. Expressive of severe pain, grief, or regret.]

 

 

Unlike the outbound trip, Team Shikaku traveled back to Konoha at a much faster pace, their Sensei making them jog for as long as they didn't drop dead. It wasn't as fast as tree-hopping, but he insisted it was necessary to build stamina (Aoi was beginning to suspect that Shikaku was a bit of a fitness nut). As a result the journey would take a fraction of the time than it had when that complaining asshole Ken had been with them.

Aoi wondered whether Kakashi had enjoyed it. Probably.

They stopped for the night in a nondescript clearing. Shikaku designated Aoi for first watch and she wordlessly hopped up a tree to settle on one of the highest branches, not wanting to be close to the rest of her team at the moment. She was pretty sure her distant attitude over the last few days was worrying them but she didn't find it in herself to actually care.

She'd been endlessly chewing over the revelations of the encounter with Orochimaru, only to arrive to one conclusion. She needed to speak to him again. But that wasn't going to be easy. The next time they met, her father would most likely try to capture her again and ship her off to his lab - maybe he still planned to steal her body. It wasn't like she could just waltz up and demand to know what he'd done.

 _But what then?_ a mocking part of her asked. _Even if you found out it was possible, even if you knew how exactly he's pulled your soul into this body, what are you going to do? Reverse it? That's ridiculous. You're already dead back home._

She was stuck here. This world was her world now. Regardless of whether she'd completely screwed it up just by existing, the original plan stood: she would survive it, ensure her own safety, and ignore everyone else. Ninja could take care of their damn problems themselves, and if they couldn't, well that was just how it had been written.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Shikaku stirring below. He paused for a moment under her tree and then started walking up it. "I want to talk," he stated.

Aoi sighed in resignation and settled back against the trunk, while he crouched on the branch in front of her, barely a shadowy outline in the darkness.

"You have a right to be angry," he said. "I'm sorry."

Aoi stared at the dark blob that was his face silently. She knew he wasn't sorry, not really. In his eyes the mission had been necessary and could even be considered a success, now that they had Kabuto, and the Jounin Commander of Konoha wasn't sorry about that. Maybe he felt a bit guilty about the way they'd involved her, but as a ninja he knew he'd done the right thing.

The forest rustled around them, accentuating Aoi's lack of a reply.

"Did Orochimaru... Experiment on you?"

The question froze her in place. She'd forgotten that he would have heard their exchange, too. Her mind raced as she decided what to do - lie, obviously. If some miracle could have convinced her to one day share her situation with Shikaku, that chance was gone now. He'd proven that placing her trust in him had been a mistake, one she was tired of repeating.

"I don't know."

"Do you know what he did?"

"No."

"Aoi."

"I don't know what he did." Aoi straightened from her seated position and jumped down before he could press for more answers. He sighed and muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like _troublesome,_ but left her alone, and prepared for his turn to keep watch.

* * *

Lee was quickly becoming stronger. Over the last year at the Academy his taijutsu had improved to above average, but now he was advancing by leaps and bounds. Gai-sensei's training was tough, and often made him want to quit, but he was starting to see results. Neji and Tenten could no longer keep up with him, endurance-wise at least. He outlasted them both by miles.

He was getting used to the weights now. There were times he barely noticed they were there.

He and Gai were in the middle of their morning handstand laps around the village when they spotted a lone silhouette in one of the training grounds, performing a kata that looked more like a set of stretches. They made a detour to investigate.

The rising sun was behind the figure, making it impossible to distinguish their face, but the wide, slow movements of the kata were familiar. Lee's eyes lit up in recognition as they approached. "Aoi-channnn!" he called. Some birds nearby startled and took flight, cawing in alarm.

The figure finished the movement unperturbed and completed the kata by lowering her open palms in front of her abdomen and exhaling slowly. The air around her vibrated imperceptibly, thick with chakra. Only then did she turn towards them. "Lee," she acknowledged.

Lee approached quickly. "I didn't know you were back from your mission. It's good to see you!"

"Indeed!" Gai added from behind him. "Usually, no one besides us is up this early. Such youthful dedication brings tears to my eyes! How did the mission go?"

Aoi shrugged. "Alright."

"Why don't you join us and tell us all about it? We only have seven laps left."

Aoi seemed to consider before shrugging again and dropping into a handstand. The three of them left the training grounds to continue on their circuit. "Why _are_ you up this early, Aoi?" Lee inquired. From the Academy, he'd known Aoi liked her sleep.

"Couldn't sleep," Aoi replied vaguely. Lee noticed that indeed, there were dark circles under her eyes. "What has your team been up to?"

They chatted while they hand-walked. They got more strange looks from the few people in the streets than usual, since the sight of Lee and Gai doing ridiculous training was pretty normal but never before had anyone joined them.

It didn't last long. After two laps Aoi gave up and walked on her feet, despite Lee and Gai's protests. She was about to split off from them to continue her own training when something occurred to her. "Gai. San," she added as an afterthought. "Are there any kind of family histories recording chakra natures?"

Gai frowned thoughtfully. "Probably. The clans always keep careful records of their members." Aoi nodded distractedly. "Why do you wish to know?"

"It's just a project I'm working on." She'd been giving it more thought since returning from the mission; it kept her mind away from other questions she didn't have the answer to. The relatively trivial subject acted as an anchor, it was something she could actually work on and figure out on her own. She even had a new theory that she would like to test.

"You could ask your Sensei," Gai proposed. "The Nara have extensive archives. I'm sure he'd let you study certain parts of them if you explained."

Aoi grimaced. "Shikaku. Yeah. Thanks." She turned to leave.

"Bye, Aoi-chan! We should spar sometime. I've gotten stronger."

She waved without looking and strolled back to the training grounds, lost in thought.

Maybe Shikaku felt guilty enough to let her take a peek. She _was_ genuinely curious about chakra type inheritance. But the idea of asking him for help made her grimace - she didn't like admitting that she needed him. Who else did she know, then, that was part of a large enough clan to provide a good case study?

Well. That was easy.

* * *

When Kakashi finally regained full consciousness he was alone in his room. He'd been drifting in and out, the painkillers distorting his sense of reality, alternating absurd hallucinations with drunk stupor. He hated it, and was glad to be finally lucid, even if his whole body felt like shit.

He tried to move, unsuccessfully. His uncovered eye rolled downwards to find he was tied to the hospital bed by straps of a material resembling plastic, the kind they used to tie down lunatics.

Wonderful.

He smelled the air, confirming that he was indeed in Konoha's hospital and it had been an hour since anyone had been in his room.

The last thing he remembered clearly was being jostled around on someone's back, nerve endings screaming, the pain practically splitting his head open, as they carried him back to Konoha. Before that there was what he assumed a long stretch of unconsciousness and before that... He shivered. The snakes.

He distinctly remembered one of the smaller reptiles crawling up his nose. In fact, it still felt like it was there.

No, it was just a tube.

Okay, so he wasn't completely lucid yet.

He was wearing the hospital's garbs and there were bandages over most of his face. He decided it would be a good idea to get out of there. They'd tied down his arms against his sides, but his hands were free. Kakashi concentrated and reached inwards for his chakra, frowning when he found it unusually thin and intangible, like a spider web. They'd given him some kind of chakra thinner too? Bastards.

Fortunately, he didn't need much control for a D-Rank jutsu. He grabbed hold of a small portion of it and directed it towards his hand, then to his pointed index finger. He forced the chakra to heat up and combust, and a small flame erupted from it. He carefully bent his finger, pointing it at the strap securing his wrist, which started to burn, letting out a foul-smelling smoke.

After a minute or so a fire alarm blared, and Kakashi was halfway out of his bonds. He quickly got rid of the other half, ripped tubes and IV needles off and rolled off the bed, grunting as he hit the floor. He was exhausted. He was in pain. He hated this smell. He wanted to go home.

He spotted a pile of his clothes, badly tattered and burned, on a chair, and put them on, grimacing as they rubbed against his still-healing wounds. He was out the window as panicked cries started spreading throughout the hospital.

They found him two days later, while he was having dinner at a fast-food place. He'd been too busy noticing how painful it was to swallow to sense Hawk until it was too late. Then again, she'd always been the stealthiest. _Hokage summons_ , she signaled in the ANBU hand-language, _immediately_.

Kakashi exhaled resignedly and finished his dinner as slowly as he could.

The Hokage was waiting for him behind his desk, chin resting over his interlocked fingers, staring at him through evaluating eyes. Kakashi shifted uncomfortably. He knew he didn't look very professional. His hair was still slightly singed and even the minuscule patch of skin that was visible around his eye was covered in cuts. Underneath his long sleeves, his wounds itched painfully.

"Your ANBU mask?" the Hokage asked evenly, breaking the silence.

"Shattered in the fight," Kakashi informed. "I haven't asked for a new one yet."

"You won't need to." Upon Kakashi's startled silence, he elaborated. "I'm reassigning you. You will cease your activities as an ANBU operative and become a Jounin-sensei to this year's graduates."

Kakashi sighed. They'd been over this in the past. "Like last year? None of them will pass the bell test, Hokage-sama. I won't teach them."

"Then you'll be a normal Jounin of Konoha, and take normal missions," the Hokage countered, unmovable. "You're not going back to ANBU, Kakashi."

Kakashi blinked, uncomprehending. The Hokage didn't repeat himself. "Why?" He was excellent in ANBU. ANBU was easy for him. He'd trained the most competent team in the entire division. Hell, if he'd been interested, he'd probably be _head_ of the division by now.

"If it hadn't been for Momoru, you would have been dead. It's a miracle you can even walk at all. How many times does this make in the past few months? Five? Six? You always manage to return from a mission in critical condition while the rest of your squad is relatively unharmed. I've gone over the reports." He paused, the words sinking in the silence. "You have a death wish, Kakashi."

"It's only logical, as captain, that I take the position with the most risk," he argued.

The Sandaime glared. "I should have noticed it before. While you wait for graduation, you will pay the Yamanaka a visit, rest, maybe take an easy B or A-rank mission that doesn't involve assassination if Inoichi allows it. Then you are going to teach a bunch of brats, protect them, and find a meaning to your life."

Kakashi opened his mouth to protest.

"That's an order."

He stared, grey eye stormy. "Only if they pass."

The Sandaime puffed on his pipe. "I hope they do. I'm giving you Minato's son."

Kakashi's back tensed as if he'd been slapped.

Fantastic.

He left the Hokage's office without a word.


	21. Defiant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [defiant: boldly resisting authority or an opposing force; rebellious.]

 

Shikaku followed Ibiki Morino through the underground corridors of T&I, ignoring the ninja they passed and the occasional scream coming from behind the closed steel doors on either side. Ibiki was a bear of a man, towering over Shikaku and almost every other ninja he knew, the visible scars on his face making him even more intimidating. He supposed that it was an advantage in his chosen profession.

"We've had him on drugs since he was brought in," Ibiki informed in a low, growling voice which fit his appearance perfectly. "The inability to access chakra can sometimes be enough for them to squeal, but this guy's tough. Medics usually are, normal methods don't work on them so well. I've personally interrogated him twice." They went down another flight of stairs. "He eventually broke. Then we found out he has a seal on his tongue that prevents him from talking. There's another one on the back of his neck, but I don't know what it does."

"Has he tried to kill himself yet?"

"No. I think he's waiting to be rescued."

They entered a larger room that had chairs lined up along the walls. Inoichi Yamanaka was waiting for them there, arms crossed over his chest and teal eyes staring thoughtfully at a door opposite. When they walked in he turned towards them expectantly.

"You'll have to tell me what I'm looking for," he said. "I need to focus on a particular question."

Shikaku nodded. "We need all the info he has on Orochimaru, and everything Orochimaru has on us. But start with where he is now and his future plans. And his experiments on Aoi Momoru," he added as an afterthought.

Kabuto smiled placidly at them when they entered the room. He was tied to a chair with steel restraints around his arms, legs and neck. Shikaku only spared him a cursory glance - dirty, thin and with cuts and bruises adorning his body, like most people placed under Ibiki's tender care for extended periods of time. He was also missing the pinky fingers of both hands.

Shikaku was surprised by that. Cutting off fingers was harsh, even for Ibiki. It was one of the worst forms of torture one could inflict on a ninja, since they would no longer be able to make hand signs and therefore it robbed them of their jutsu. It was normally reserved for S-class criminals. If anything it proved how stubborn Kabuto had been. "Good morning," the prisoner greeted, voice hoarse and scratchy from weeks without food or water. "Or is it? I can't tell anymore."

Inoichi took a step forwards, and a shadow of fear crossed Kabuto's eyes, before the bland smile was back in place. "I get the head of the Yamanaka clan? What an honor."

Without further ado Inoichi placed a hand on top of his head and closed his eyes.

He found himself surrounded by mirrors. Kabuto's mind was a forest of mirrors, from shards to full-length ones that stretched on in front of him, behind him, above and below, blocking his view. Some reflected Inoichi's image back at him, while others showed Kabuto himself, always with the same irritating smile. Occasionally, a pattern of white scales would appear, alternating between mirrors so it seemed to be moving around Inoichi. "Someone's put blocks on him," he informed Shikaku and Ibiki, before diving deeper.

At first glance the size and orientation of the mirrors seemed random, and the images they reflected made it difficult to find a point of reference. But Inoichi had been doing this for decades. He quickly found the pattern and started moving towards what they were trying to conceal - Kabuto's brain, a huge construct suspended in a space inside their protective barrier.

He approached and placed his hands on it. It was warm and pulsing with activity. Then he pulled, extracting a giant scroll, which he started unrolling, eyes scanning the writing there as the paper fell away below him. He skipped past the early memories - _an orphanage, a woman -_

_Danzo and an organization he'd never heard of -_

_Aoi Momoru,_ _Kabuto noticed something odd about her, something that didn't quite fit -_

_Orochimaru, approaching him after the woman's death -_

_A laboratory in -_

Without warning, the mirrors around Inoichi changed their orientation to point at him like a thousand needles, threatening instead of protecting. They rushed at him, and Inoichi barely pulled himself out in time to avoid being impaled. The brain representing the core of Kabuto's mind was skewered, completely destroyed until nothing was left.

Inoichi fell back in the interrogation room, shocked. Shikaku was next to him instantly, helping him up. "What happened?"

"There were barriers," Inoichi explained, scrutinizing the seated Kabuto. His head was tilted forwards, his hair obscuring his face. "I managed to get past them, but I triggered something as I examined his memories, which caused the barriers to... I think they destroyed his own mind."

Ibiki slowly approached Kabuto. He grabbed hold of his hair and lifted his head. Kabuto's eyes were glassy, staring vacantly at the interrogator's coarse features like he didn't recognize him. "Can you hear me?" Ibiki slapped him hard across the face, but he still didn't respond; he didn't even blink. He seemed empty, his eyes lacking the spark of intelligence that even weeks of torture hadn't snuffed out, a carcass with nothing inside. If not for the pulsing artery faintly visible on the side of his neck, he could have been mistaken for dead.

"So Orochimaru programmed his memories to be destroyed if he was interrogated, by the same barriers meant to protect them," Shikaku stated.

Inoichi shook his head. "Not just his memories. His entire mind. This man is dead - that over there is just his body."

"Troublesome," he grunted. They couldn't get anything out of him anymore, and he no longer had value as a hostage - not that he had much in the first place. "Did you manage to find something at least?"

Inoichi tugged on his long, blonde ponytail distractedly in a distinctly feminine manner. "Your Genin was part of Root, an ANBU subdivision," he said.

A few seconds passed before it registered. "What?"

"Or something like it. The details weren't very clear. Kabuto was the one who recruited her and trained her. She left before he turned traitor."

Well. That was shocking, but it fit. Her familiar exchange with Kabuto during the confrontation had been suspicious, but it made sense if they'd known each other from ANBU. It also explained her emotional detachment and some of her odd habits, especially if she'd started at a young age. What didn't make sense at all was the Hokage failing to mention it in his debriefing to Shikaku when he was assigned as her sensei. The black ops wasn't a kind world, certainly not to a child, and it was the kind of crucial knowledge he needed to have. Why would the Hokage hide that? Why hadn't Aoi herself told him? Even if this was one of those things that were kept under wraps, Shikaku, as her sensei, should at least have been made aware of it.

He didn't have all the information and thus he shouldn't judge. There had to be a reason for such secrecy. But it still irked him that Aoi and the Hokage had kept something this big for him, and made him wonder what other secrets she was hiding. "Did you see what Orochimaru did to her?"

"No... I'm not sure Kabuto himself knew." Inoichi sighed. "There wasn't much more I could find. Orochimaru has multiple hideouts, and he's been... continuing his experiments."

While they talked Ibiki had knelt in front of the prisoner and was checking vitals and trying to elicit a reaction, but Kabuto remained utterly still and unresponsive, like a particularly realistic puppet. The interrogator checked the seals on his tongue and the back of his neck, noting a different conformation in the latter. "It's the seal," he informed. "It's been activated."

The two Jounin leaned in to take a closer look. They both had a basic knowledge of sealing, but neither had seen anything like this one. The inky lines curled into Kabuto's neck like claws, embedding themselves into his skin. "One thing's for sure, he's brain-dead," Ibiki assessed, after a more thorough examination. "Vegetative state."

"Could he be faking it? He's a medic, after all."

"Keep him under observation until Jiraya returns and takes a look at the seal."

"I think we should just kill him. He's not worth the trouble."

When Shikaku finally exited the building, leaving Inoichi and Ibiki to discuss the spy's fate, the sun was already setting, bathing Konoha in a comforting amber glow. Shikaku's steps took him to the forest inside his clan's compound while he was lost in his thoughts. It was disappointing that they hadn't gained more information from Kabuto. He'd been convinced the spy could give them the key to finding and defeating Orochimaru once and for all. Instead, the Sannin had managed to slip through their fingers again, by virtually killing his own agent - somehow, Shikaku wasn't surprised.

He stopped pacing and stood in the middle of the forest, the long shadows of the sunset twisting around him. All they could do now was wait.

He felt rather than heard one of his deer approaching, and reached into his jacket, taking out a purple fruit. He left it on the ground and retreated a few steps, watching as the animal hesitantly stepped forwards and lowered its neck to the fruit in a smooth, graceful movement.

He wondered if he should keep pressing Aoi for answers. She resented him, that much was clear, which meant getting anything out of her would be hard. He could force it - or in the worst case scenario, ask Inoichi to find out - but he knew that would be a foolish move. Her trust in him was already flimsy as it was; antagonizing her further would only drive her away from him and away from Konoha, and she had too much potential to risk losing her.

He'd have to trust her, then. Trust that her loyalty to the village was more than just circumstantial and that, if she needed help, she would ask him for it. Shikaku wasn't all that comfortable with the decision, but he didn't have much choice. As long as she didn't deliberately harm Konoha, he could allow her her secrecy. He'd been a ninja for long enough to recognize the necessity to keep certain things to oneself.

That wasn't the end of his worries. Team Shikaku had been formed almost four months ago. There would be Chunin exams happening soon, in Amegakure, and he had to decide whether to nominate them.

No, he wouldn't. Even if Aoi already had the maturity and skills to face the exams, and Aris was quickly getting there, Daichi wasn't ready. The boy still lacked discipline. He'd run his mouth off every day, proclaiming he would kick the ass of all his opponents, but when it came to training he was lazy and gave up quickly. Daichi just didn't take his chosen career seriously enough. He wasn't Chunin material yet.

And he wasn't sure Hidden Rain's new regime could be trusted. The civil war had ended a short time ago, and, though they were still officially allies, Konoha hadn't collected enough intelligence on the new leaders yet. No, he wouldn't nominate them for this exam.

On the other hand, Shikaku was also Jounin Commander and he couldn't afford to neglect that post in favor of his team for much longer. He supposed he'd just have to wait until the next exams, juggling his responsibilities in the meantime. Maybe focus on Daichi to get him up to standard. He also had to find someone to teach Aoi lightning jutsu, and work on Aris's fire jutsu.

But for the moment, he'd watch the deer. Then maybe play Shogi with Shikamaru. He hadn't spent much time with his son lately.

* * *

Hinata opened the scroll, glancing nervously at the door to her clan's library. After some deliberation she activated her Byakugan, immediately visualizing the entire compound, and exhaled in relief when she didn't spot anyone near. She was sure her father wouldn't approve of what she was doing if he knew, so she absolutely couldn't afford to get caught. She retrieved a smaller blank scroll from her pocket and started copying the contents of the first into the second, checking with her Byakugan every so often for adults.

She'd been immensely happy when she spotted Aoi leaning against a tree at the exit of the Academy, arms crossed and hitai-ate gleaming in the sun. She'd missed the sparring sessions. In teaching another person Gentle Fist Hinata had improved her own taijutsu tremendously, she'd felt like she was finally doing something, after years of being called a disappointment. When Aoi had graduated she'd looked for a new sparring partner in the girls in her class, but they'd declined, saying they preferred going shopping and having fun. The one time Ino did agree she kept complaining about the bruises and sweat that was ruining her complexion. "Iruka-sensei says I'll probably pass anyway, so what's the point?"

Hinata had been appalled by her classmate's attitude. _It's not about passing the exam_ , she wanted to say. _It's about becoming strong enough to protect your teammates,_ but when she opened her mouth Ino had already turned away.

It turned out Aoi hadn't returned for the sparring sessions. She was there to ask for a favor, something only Hinata could do, something risky.

Hinata had been reluctant, at first. One of the Hyuga's most important rules was to not divulge family secrets, and she'd already risked enough by teaching an outsider Gentle Fist. But Aoi had explained that her curiosity was purely scientific, and that she didn't mean to use the information against the Hyuga in any way. Even if she did, Hinata didn't see how knowing chakra natures could be harmful. The Hyuga didn't use any elemental techniques; records were only kept for the sake of keeping records and because the Hyuga loved family trees.

They were common enough in the main section of the clan's library and finding one that included chakra natures hadn't been hard. Even Academy students like her were allowed access to them. Taking them out of the library or making notes, however, was strictly forbidden.

Hinata had always been invisible to her clan. She could do it.

It wasn't sparring, but it had a thrill of its own. In asking her this, Aoi had placed her trust in her and proved that she didn't believe Hinata was worthless.

The scroll depicted a central trunk, representing the main house, with extensions branching out from it, representing the branch houses. It was always like this: the main house in the middle, where Hyuga blood supposedly ran the thickest; and the branch houses around it, protecting it, painted in fainter ink.

When she was finished, Hinata rolled up the original scroll and put it back in the shelf before pocketing the other one and scurrying out of the library, glad it was over. As she turned the corner, she bumped into someone and looked up, her face paling.

Neji stared down at her, white eyes hard. There was a moment of tension in which neither of them moved and Hinata didn't even dare breathe. She looked down and to the left, nervous. Even under normal circumstances she didn't like crossing paths with Neji. He hated her, and never made an effort to hide it, and Hinata had never understood why. He was talented, confident, a genius even the main branch recognized. He had all she'd ever wanted.

She moved aside for him.

After a few seconds he sneered quietly and left.

Hinata breathed out.

She was smiling as she left the compound, and it hadn't faded when she reached the tea shop where Aoi was waiting. "Did you get it?" Hinata nodded, taking out the scroll. Aoi smiled. "Cool."

A pleased blush spread on her cheeks. She sat down next to Aoi, watching as the Genin examined the family tree. "Mostly fire as a first nature, and water as a second," Aoi assessed thoughtfully. She unrolled the scroll further, going into older generations. "But water seems to be predominant the further back you go."

"What does that mean?" Hinata asked timidly. She was curious too. It was her clan, after all.

"I think," Aoi drawled, "It could have changed when the Hyuga joined Konoha. Initially your clan was mostly water-natured, with fire as a second, but marriages with fire-natured Konoha shinobi would have inverted that somehow..." she mumbled to herself. She reached into one of her own pockets and got out a new blank scroll, on which she started drawing circles and squares. "But water nature occasionally resurfaces in the younger generations, like with..." she looked up at the scroll, "Neji." She wrote _Wa_ under the bottommost square.

It was a schematized version of the family tree she'd copied, Hinata realized. The squares represented males, and the circles females.

Aoi drew an oblique line from Neji to his father, and another one from Neji to his mother. Hinata furrowed her brows. Family trees weren't drawn like that. Sensing her confusion, Aoi explained, "I'm quite sure chakra nature is genetic, and that it's not determined by a single gene. If it's multiple genes normal family trees won't help. What I'm using is called the pathway to common ancestor method. It lets me calculate how many genes two people in your family have in common. You and Neji are cousins, but your fathers are identical twins. You have 1/4 of your genes in common."

There was a lull in the conversation as Aoi drew more lines, and wrote down natures, linking everyone up on the family tree. She was obviously in a good mood, smiling as she did it, satisfied with whatever conclusions she came to. "Such an old clan, and with so many twins. This is perfect."

"Is there, um, anything else I can do?" Hinata inquired timidly.

"Well," Aoi considered, "do you remember someone in your family with notable characteristics in their chakra nature? Someone with particularly strong fire, or water," she proposed.

Hinata shook her head. "The Hyuga don't normally use elemental jutsu. But I can research a bit, if you want."

Aoi rolled the scrolls and stood up. "That would be helpful. Thank you, Hinata. I owe you one." She shot Hinata a wry smile and left, already thinking about what she would do next.


End file.
